Healthcare is a business of trust and faith. But as one of the major drivers of the economy, the industry is also highly competitive.
Some of that has changed over the past 45 years. Organizations that survived, or even progressed, during the pandemic embraced partnerships in the public and private sectors. But such efforts require leadership.
These 45 leaders exemplify collaboration created in service to the patient.
The Unity Center for Behavioral Health was started nearly 40 years ago by a group of competing providers and currently operates as a not-for profit behavioral healthcare provider serving Washington state. Leaders in the following organizations have kept the collaborative going.
KATHRYN CORREIA
President and CEO
Legacy Health
Correia took over as President and CEO of Legacy, which has a presence in Oregon and Washington, in 2018. In a recent post on the system's website addressing recruitment of new clinical leaders, Correia revealed the importance of partnerships to her strategy. "We are looking for candidates who are collaborative, inclusive, and bring clinical credibility and the ability to quickly build relationships and trust with clinicians and other key partners inside and outside of Legacy."
DR. IMELDA DACONES
President and CEO
Northwest Permanante
Unity Center isn't Dacones' only partnership to address behavioral health. In 2019, Northwest Permanente became part of Kaiser Permanente’s launch of Thrive Local, which connects community members with health care and social services providers, to address pressing social needs including housing, food, safety, utilities. “If you go to their website, you will see the almost 200 partners we have in the community," said Dacones, who is retiring in July 2021. "This is for all Oregonians, and multiple health systems participate in it.”
DR. DANNY JACOBS
President
OHSU
Jacobs took over the corner office at OHSU in 2018. Among OHSU's other unique partnerships is a graduate medical education collaborative with UC Davis known as COMPADRE, short for California Oregon Medical Partnership to Address Disparities in Rural Education and Health. “My approach has always been about teamwork, collaboration and community," Jacobs said upon his hire.
SCOTT REINER
CEO
Adventist Health
Reiner has held various hospital CEO and system executive positions within Adventist Health since 1999 and has held the top position since 2014. “We ... know that the future of healthcare goes beyond the role of traditional hospitals by investing in our communities to improve people’s overall wellbeing,” Reiner said in 2020 after acquiring Blue Zones, an organization which aims to improve community health.
NIALL BRENNAN
President and CEO
Health Care Cost Institute
The HCCI uses de-identifed claims from more than 65 million people with employer sponsored insurance nationwide to uncover trends driving healthcare spending so that employers, government officials, academic researchers and the public can find ways to address costs.
DR. JAMES DOWNING
President and CEO
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
While clinical research data projects are common, St. Jude was at the forefront in 2010 when it embarked upon a collaboration to identify genetic changes that lead to pediatric cancer. Freely available to the global research community, the project yielded groundbreaking discoveries in brain tumors, leukemia, solid tumors and cancer of the peripheral nervous system.
DR. JOHN HALAMKA
President
Mayo Clinic Platform
The COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition gathered leaders from diverse sectors across the healthcare and technology industries to gain better data insights to fight back against the coronavirus.
DR. C. WILLIAM KECK
Executive Director
MEDICC
MEDICC is an Oakland-based not-for-profit that promotes receptive learnings from global healthcare practices. In particular, the organization encourages learnings between providers in the U.S. and Cuba.
DR. JAN LEE
CEO
Delaware Health Information Network
DHIN is the nation’s first state-wide clinical health information exchange in which key elected officials and healthcare leaders aggregate clinical data from hospitals, labs, radiology centers, ambulatory practices and health plans.
TAMARA POGUE
CEO
Peak Health Alliance
The group represents roughly 6,000 people employed by small and large businesses and individuals in Summit County, Colo. It launched in 2018 and remains a unique model that leverages its size to negotiate a package of discounted rates for medical services directly with Centura Health, the county’s main health system and only hospital provider.
DR. KIMBERLYDAWN WISDOM
Senior Vice President and Chief Wellness and Diversity Officer
Henry Ford Health System
Henry Ford and three other local health systems launched the Women-Inspired Neighborhood Network, which connects at-risk mothers with community health workers and access to prenatal and postnatal care services. The program has seen huge success.
PAUL WILDER
Executive Director
CommonWell Health Alliance
The interoperability group founded by Allscripts, Cerner, athenahealth and several other industry giants was created eight years ago to advance health IT interoperability using different EHR technologies. CommonWell includes over 80 member companies working across more than 20 care settings.
DAVID ZUCKERMAN
Executive Director
Healthcare Anchor Network
The Healthcare Anchor Network helps hospitals and health systems build community wealth in dis-invested neighborhoods through inclusive hiring, investment and purchasing.
DR. OMAR LATEEF
President and CEO
Rush University Medical Center
Since 2008, Rush University Medical Center has provided equipment and donations to one of Chicago’s city colleges to train Chicago residents for jobs in healthcare. The program started under Dr. Larry Goodman, who retired in 2019.
JUAN SALGADO
Chancellor
City Colleges of Chicago
Salgado has held his position since 2017, two years after winning the prestigious MacArthur fellowship. He was recognized for his work at an organization that offered low-income residents education, citizenship, and skill-building programs. Now he oversees Chicago's community college system, serving nearly 70,000 students across seven colleges, 75% of whom are Black and Latino students.
GUI CAVALCANTI
Co-executive Director
Open Source Medical Supplies
In March 2020, a global network of over 70,000 manufacturers, community organizers and medical professionals coordinated to meet medical supply challenges during the pandemic.
MOLLY WENIG RUBENSTEIN
Co-executive Director
Open Source Medical Supplies
Over eight months, small-to-medium scale manufacturers shared files, production plans and resources to produce over 48 million units of personal protective equipment and medical supplies for healthcare workers and community organizations in 86 countries. Much of the production happened as a result of donations of raw materials or raising their own funds via crowdsourcing.
GREG ADAMS
Chair and CEO
Kaiser Permanente
CityHealth, an initiative of Kaiser and the de Beaumont Foundation, was established in 2017 to drive public health improvements by adopting evidence-based policies through collaborations.
BRIAN CASTRUCCI
President and CEO
de Beaumont Foundation
Among de Beaumont Foundation's other efforts are a coalition of 30 health leaders from the nation's 30 largest cities and playbooks for supporting cross-sector and public health partnerships.
DR. RAVI CHARI
President and CEO
HCA’s West Florida Division
Chari initiated the group text message in Feb. 2020 that sparked a partnership between former competitors responsible for more than two thirds of the Tampa Bay area's hospitals. “I told them we need to get together and begin to understand how we can start pulling our resources,” Chari told the Tampa Bay Times.
JOHN COURIS
President and CEO
Tampa General Hospital
The three executives, who later added even more local hospital and health system leaders, would communicate daily and even now call or email weekly or even more frequently. “Every day we’re sharing information about positive patients in the hospital, and we’re collaborating on surge and testing where it’s appropriate,” Couris told the Tampa Bay Times in April 2020. “The idea is if one hospital is hit hard, we would collectively be there to support."
TOMMY INZINA
President and CEO
President and CEO of BayCare
Inzina chairs Tampa Bay Thrives, a not-for-profit helping address mental health and substance use issues. Chari is vice chair of the initiative, which also includes Couris as a member, along with executives from Advent Health and Florida Blue.
TERRY SHAW
President and CEO
President and CEO of AdventHealth
Four large health systems in Florida, all competitors in their region, agreed to share information, public health messaging, coordinate activities, and collaborate with resources during the pandemic.
KEN FRAZIER
Retired CEO
Recently retired CEO of Merck
Merck helped manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine made by its rival Johnson & Johnson in an effort to meet demand.
ALEX GORSKY
CEO
Johnson & Johnson
Gorsky in March touted the initiative with Merck, calling the organization an "active partner with the common goal of public health." Frazier, meantime, said Johnson & Johnson and Merck, along with the federal government had become a "force multiplier against a battle" that had to be won. The factory that will manufacture the vaccine is expected to open this fall.
DAVID DILL
President and CEO
LifePoint Health
Duke LifePoint Healthcare is a joint venture created to own and operate community hospitals in North Carolina and surrounding states. The goal was to have investor-owned LifePoint bring financial and operational resources, including capital, while Duke, a not-for-profit academic medical center, offered guidance on clinical and quality matters and access to highly specialized care.
DR. BILL FULKERSON
Executive Vice President
Duke Health
Duke LifePoint has 14 hospitals in Michiga, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. "This partnership wasn't founded initially to just go out and buy hospitals or contribute hospitals into it," Dill told HealthLeaders earlier this year. "It was what Dr. Fulkerson said: the relationship started to help improve care at the bedside. I think because of that, it had a great chance of success from the beginning."
DANIEL LILJENQUIST
Senior vice president and chief strategy officer
Intermountain Healthcare
Liljenquist is the brainchild behind Civica Rx and now board chair of the not-for-profit generic drug company that aims to reduce chronic generic drug shortages and high costs.
MARTIN VAN TRIESTE
President and CEO
Civica Rx
Under Van Trieste, Civica has grown to include over 50 health systems, representing over 1,350 hospitals across the U.S., and has manufactured more than 40 drugs, eleven of which are being used to treat COVID-19 patients.
MARK CLEMENT
President and CEO
TriHealth
During the pandemic, these competitors in Ohio coordinated to meet surge capacity, obtain PPE and deal with other public health issues in ways they expect will remain in an effort to best serve their patient populations.
MICHAEL FISHER
President and CEO
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
While working together, the systems learned that the region they served had enough hospital beds to address surge capacity and as a result, scrapped early plans an auxiliary facility, according to the Cincinnati Times.
DR. RICHARD LOFGREN
President and CEO
UC Health
“A lot of these people have met each other for the first time through this crisis. … They have kind of learned that it’s OK to talk to the competitor across town about certain things or a competitor across the state." Mike Abrams, CEO of the Ohio Hospital Association told the Cincinnati Times. "They want the pandemic to be over, but they’re going to miss each other.”
JAN WALKER, RN
Co-founder
OpenNotes
In 2010, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston led an initiative giving patients online access to their entire ambulatory medical records, including clinician notes. In a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, more than 100 primary care doctors and 20,000 of their patients read their notes via secure online portals to examine the impact on care and the patient-provider relationships.
DR. TOM DELBANCO
Co-founder
OpenNotes
Over the years, the project has received support from Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Legacy Health, Providence Health System which created a consortium in the Pacific Northwest. Following the success of that group, OpenNotes consortia have been launched in California, New York and Wisconsin. More than 50 million patients in the U.S. and Canada have gained access to their notes.
LLOYD DEAN
President and CEO
CommonSpirit Health
During the pandemic, 12 systems, including CommonSpirit signed on to the Impact Purchasing Commitment, agreeing to increase spending with minority and women-owned businesses by at least $1 billion over five years. CommonSpirit additionally partnered with Morehouse School of Medicine on a 10-year, $100 million project to reduce health disparities.
WRIGHT LASSITER III
President and CEO
Henry Ford Health System
In addition to leading one of the most successful maternal and infant health collaborations in the country, Henry Ford participates in countless partnerships to improve health, address health disparities, and increase access.
DR. TOM MIHALJEVIC
President and CEO
Cleveland Clinic
As part of the Impact Purchasing Commitment, the participating institutions also agreed to work with at least two of their large existing vendors to create hiring pipelines in disinvested communities. In 2019, Cleveland Clinic invested $22 million in a local laundry cooperative in an effort to increase wealth in the communities it serves.
JIM SKOGSBERGH
President and CEO
Advocate Aurora Health
Advocate Aurora, Banner Health and Premier led the formation of a 15-system supply chain cooperative that bought a minority stake in Prestige Ameritech, the largest domestic maker of PPE. Advocate had experience in this type of effort as it was one of the founding members of Civica Rx.
Denver-based Evio, launched by five Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in June, uses data from more than 20 million members across the U.S. to collect real-world evidence into how drugs actually perform in an effort to combat high prices. A goal is to get drugmakers to agree to outcomes-based contracts, under which the plans pay in accordance with drugs’ effectiveness.
GREGORY DEAVENS
President and CEO
Independence Health Group
Deavens became President and CEO in January, 2021.His predecessor, Daniel Hilferty, served for 10 years.
ANDREW DREYFUS
President and CEO
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
In addition to its work with Evio, Blue Cross Shield of Massachusetts partners with community groups to address racial inequality.
DAVID HOLMBERG
President and CEO
Highmark Health
In addition to Evio, Highmark Health created a digital health joint venture with ChristianaCare that aims to accelerate value-based care.
DANIEL LOEPP
President and CEO
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
In addition to Evio, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan over the past 10 years has partnered with hospitals, physicians and care providers across the state in the Value Partnerships initiative which claims to have saved $1.4 billion in health expenses during its existence.
PAUL MARKOVICH
President and CEO
Blue Shield of California
Blue Shield of California participates in Civica Rx. In 2017, the insurer's foundation helped fund a collaborative to improve the quality of domestic violence healthcare services.
MICHAEL DOWLING
President and CEO
Northwell Health
Among the most valiant efforts to collaborate during the pandemic in order to protect front-line workers were between these two systems. Their staff traveled across the country to assist during each other’s surges and learn best practices as they worked.
DR. MARC HARRISON
President and CEO
Intermountain Healthcare
In 2020, Modern Healthcare honored both of these leaders in the top spots of the 100 Most Influential Leaders, after the frontline worker. Here are the essays they wrote about their work together.
