100 Most Influential People in Healthcare - 2021

Despite facing $101 million in losses for the first nine months of the year, ProMedica has continued to expand its portfolio of senior offerings such as a partnership with AAA Club Alliande, opening several new facilities and launching an innovation center.

As leader of the not-for-profit Toledo, Ohio-based system, Oostra, has overseen all of the moves. Oostra is the founder of the National Commission to Redesign Healthcare and serves on the boards of the American Hospital Association, Health Research and Educational Trust and the Root Cause Coalition, which ProMedica founded. He holds a doctorate in management from Case Western Reserve University and a master’s in healthcare administration from the University of Minnesota.

Oostra speaks: “Who has more resources in our communities than nonprofit healthcare? When you look at the dollars healthcare systems have, our nonprofit status, and the talented and mission-based people we have, why wouldn't we use that chassis across the United States and invest that same amount of money on a new focus: social determinants of health? That seems awfully logical to us—and besides, if we don't start investing in our communities, who will?”