Message From Your Chair
Reflections on the Past Year: Strength in Numbers
Fosina Receives Gold Medal Award
Ross Honored With Lifetime Service Award
Saxe Receives Lifetime Service Award
Physician, Journalist Snyderman to Give MacEachern Memorial Address
Upcoming AHA, AHIP, ANA Special Session
Premier Corporate Partners

Congress Daily

March 28, 2022

Message From Your Chair

By Anthony A. Armada, FACHE

Hello, and welcome to the 2022 Congress on Healthcare Leadership. It’s been a great first day—and there is so much more in store this week!

Thank you for taking the time to attend. It has been exciting to gather in person for the first time in three years. Today we had the opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues and share what we’ve learned since we last came together. I hope you are looking forward to even more inspiring conversations and learning.

Congress remains the premier event dedicated to advancing healthcare leadership excellence. This week the education sessions feature more than 160 expert faculty who will explore innovative solutions to persistent challenges. We have also included numerous career development and networking opportunities for you.

The reimagined Solutions Center is the home to many of these opportunities, including the new Ignite Stage, featuring presentations from our authors, partners, career coaches and other experts. We invite you to drop in to connect with other industry leaders and explore ACHE benefits and services.

As a field, we have made amazing strides over the last two years, despite the unthinkable obstacles we have faced. My Governors and I offer my thanks for your incredible efforts and for joining us this week at Congress.

Enjoy your week.

Sincerely,

Anthony A. Armada, FACHE

Anthony Armada is Chair of the American College of Healthcare Executives, and executive vice president/chief transformation officer, Generations Healthcare Network, Lincolnwood, Ill.

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Reflections on the Past Year: Strength in Numbers

By Carrie Owen Plietz, FACHE

Healthcare is a reflection of the communities we serve, and 2021 was a roller-coaster year for everyone. But the disruptions we all faced at home and work over the past 12 months highlighted the importance, the fortitude and the perseverance of our front-line caregivers and everyone who supports them. Many of the challenges we faced were new and required strong and resilient leadership.

When I assumed the role of ACHE’s Chair at this time last year, it was serendipitous my journey with Kaiser Permanente was also beginning. As the new Northern California president, I was learning the organization and its culture, while also working to support a team facing some of the most challenging times in their careers, both personally and professionally. At the same time, I was focusing on the future and how we could elevate virtual care to best meet the needs of patients.

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Fosina Receives Gold Medal Award

Michael J. Fosina, FACHE, ACHE’s 2020–2021 Chair, was honored today as the recipient of the Gold Medal Award.

The Gold Medal Award, ACHE’s highest honor, is bestowed on outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions to the healthcare field throughout their service career. The purpose of the award is to identify ACHE Fellows who best exemplify leadership at the organizational, local/state/provincial and national levels.

When Fosina was preparing to lead the American College of Healthcare Executives as its new Chair in 2020, he also was following an epidemic that would metastasize into a pandemic. The hospital he led, NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence, would soon provide initial treatment of the first known hospitalized COVID-19 patient on the East Coast.

After he was installed as Chair in March 2020, he stepped into a very different and unprecedented role. Shortly thereafter, the ACHE Board of Governors held an emergency meeting and canceled the Congress on Healthcare Leadership for the first time in its more than 60-year history. During this turbulent period, Fosina’s leadership abilities were needed not only for his hospital but also for ACHE, as it adapted to a constantly changing environment.

He led NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence through every surge, developing and executing plans, converting space into ICU bays, constructing COVID-19 units and shutting down ORs to comply with executive orders. Colleagues have commended his efforts to blend the health system’s demands with the needs and safety of the staff.

His time as ACHE Chair was also unprecedented in the organization’s history, yet Fosina worked to ensure it remained a source of leadership and conduit for vital information. Instead of meeting in person with executives, he adapted his methods of connection, calling colleagues to check in and working with the ACHE management team to adjust time frames for educational credits and credentials and develop virtual courses as test runs for the very first virtual Congress in 2021. During this time, he hosted an early episode of ACHE’s COVID-19 webinar series with front-line leaders, in which he and guest Steve Corwin, MD, CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian, discussed what they had learned so far about COVID-19 and sharing their experience as one of the areas hit the earliest.

His healthcare peers recognize Fosina for his ability to communicate “clearly and unequivocally,” which allows people to trust him and rely on his perspective. They say he is “a wealth of knowledge,” and that “many rely on him for his historic viewpoint and counsel.”

In addition to his service as Chair from 2020 to 2021, he has served as Chair-Elect and Immediate Past Chair, as well as on dozens of councils and committees, including the Nominating Committee, the Finance Committee and the Voluntary Giving Committee.

He has received the ACHE Senior-Level Regent Award, the Service Award, the Distinguished Service Award and the Exemplary Service Award. He has been a Congressional Fellow, is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and has given back to his community with service on a variety of boards and organizations, among them the Business Council of Westchester, the Westchester County Association, the Stellaris Health Network Board of Trustees and the Silvercrest Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation Board of Trustees.

These contributions have been recognized with honors and awards from groups ranging from the Boy Scouts and the city of New Rochelle, N.Y., to his employer, senior care groups, local nursing and physician organizations.

Note: Read more about Fosina in the Journal of Healthcare Management.

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Ross Honored With Lifetime Service Award

Zeff Ross, LFACHE, was honored today with ACHE’s Lifetime Service Award during the Arthur C. Bachmeyer Memorial Address and Luncheon.

The Lifetime Service and Achievement Award recognizes Life Fellows and Retired Fellows who have made outstanding, nationally recognized contributions to advance the profession of healthcare management and the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Ross has had a genuine and lasting impact on the healthcare community. During his 40-plus years of service, he revolutionized the delivery of healthcare in South Florida, encouraging his team at Memorial Regional Hospital to deliver the highest quality of care and achieving high patient, employee and physician satisfaction.

His tenure in the Memorial Healthcare System began in 1991 as the inaugural administrator of Memorial Hospital West, Pembroke Pines, Fla., which he helped build, open and run. He served in that role for 16 years, and then was promoted to senior vice president of West Operations and later added the title of CEO, Memorial Hospital Pembroke. He was responsible for instituting numerous successful healthcare programs and complex service lines, including an adult cardiac transplant program, a kidney transplant program for adults and pediatrics, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and ventricular assist device services and transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

Each of these initiatives required careful planning and attention to ensure success, and Ross worked tirelessly to identify and recruit the best personnel, set aside the appropriate space, acquire the necessary equipment and support the functions of these programs from their delicate start to robust autonomy. His many contributions have added immeasurable value to the healthcare landscape in South Broward.

During his career, Ross has consistently played an active role as a mentor and supportive advocate to many in the industry. Throughout his tenure at MHS, he served as an adjunct professor at Florida International University and St. Thomas University, teaching graduate courses in healthcare. He also has served as a preceptor for the Florida International University School of Health Administration, as well as Tufts University School of Medicine MD/MBA program in health management.

He first was introduced to ACHE as a student and has been an ACHE member for more than 40 years, achieving Life Fellow status. He has been honored with the ACHE Senior-Level Regent Award twice and has received a Service Award. He served as the ACHE Regent for Southern Florida from 2003 to 2006, disseminating information regarding advancement requirements, courses available, and providing an opportunity for candidates and members to network—including encouraging C-suite executives to meet with up-and-coming healthcare leaders.

Using the Regents Advisory Council, Ross provided the necessary support to create and initiate a local review course for ACHE Members to prepare for the Board of Governors Exam and ultimately be able to progress to Fellow status.

Ross was a champion of ethics for ACHE, assisting with a review of the Ethics Self-Assessment, suggesting needed revisions. In addition, he has been a member and officer of a wide range of professional associations and community organizations, including the American Heart Association, Florida International University HCMBA Advisory Council, Greater Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and the Broward Regional EMS Council. He was appointed by the governor to serve on the Florida Trauma State Advisory Council and continued to do so for over two years while in retirement. He has been recognized with more than 50 awards and honors, most recently the 2019 Excellence in Service Award from the Greater Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the 2017 Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award of IP Behavioral Health, and the 2017 President’s Award for Excellence in Healthcare by Professional Research Consultants Inc.

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Saxe Receives Lifetime Service Award

Steven M. Saxe, LFACHE, was honored today with ACHE’s Lifetime Service Award during the Arthur C. Bachmeyer Memorial Address and Luncheon.

Saxe has embodied the ACHE values of lifelong learning and service to the profession throughout his healthcare career. A pharmacist by training, Saxe worked in both inpatient and outpatient healthcare settings, where he rapidly rose to leadership positions.

He joined ACHE while in the Duke University MHA program in 1986 and has been a continuous member ever since, achieving Life Fellow status upon his retirement. He was instrumental in the establishment of his local ACHE chapter, the Puget Sound Healthcare Executive Forum and then its transition to the Washington State Healthcare Executives Forum as part of the ACHE Chapter Demonstration Project in Washington that led to the formation of the ACHE chapter system.

The goal of the whole-state model was to improve the ability to network with other healthcare executives, provide professional development education, and promote ACHE membership and the FACHE^® credential. As part of the local goals, satellite viewing locations were established for chapter events, with simulcast video, providing access for ACHE affiliates across the large state. The chapter’s membership nearly doubled as a result.

One of the activities he is most proud of helping to implement is the chapter’s “Meet-and-Mingle” networking events, which allowed any member in a region to host a short post-work gathering of chapter members. These events began with a short promo for WSHEF and ACHE activities and sometimes included short education pieces. Over the years, subsequent chapter members have continued to expand on this concept—even during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the “Meet-and-Mingle” events and educational discussions continued via videoconference.

At the national level, Saxe served as the ACHE Regent for Washington from 2004 to 2007 and has participated in ACHE’s mentor program and contributed as a reviewer and judge for the Richard J. Stull Student Essay Competition.

Saxe’s career has taken him from the front lines of USPHS Indian Health Center to hospital operations and numerous roles at the Washington State Department of Health, culminating in an executive director position at the Washington State Pharmacy Commission from 2016 to 2019. He has always been willing to be a resource for ACHE members across the state and country, providing insight into state regulatory initiatives and offering his expertise on focus areas such as medication safety, suicide prevention and opioid overdose response.

Contributions over the duration of Saxe’s distinguished tenure include sharing hospital emergency operations center experience from two earthquakes, participating on the opioid overdose response team for Washington, developing the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program in Washington, leading the Department of Health Statewide Rural Health Office and working to address health professional shortages. He also led the development of the State Suicide Prevention Plan, overseeing grant work for stroke prevention and participating in the National Violent Death Reporting System, and working on the medication safe-disposal legislation for Washington.

Throughout his career, Saxe has supported and promoted the values of ACHE and the state chapter for networking, lifelong learning, ethical decision-making and credentialing. Colleagues recognize him for his incredible work ethic and his “humble leadership by example.”

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Physician, Journalist Snyderman to Give MacEachern Memorial Address

Nancy Snyderman, MD, will explore a variety of workforce solutions to address challenges in this new, complex world, as she presents “Workforce Solutions for the Modern World of Healthcare” at Tuesday’s Malcolm T. MacEachern Memorial Address & Luncheon (12:30–2:00 p.m.)

To say that the healthcare workforce will be transformed by recent disruption would be an understatement. From pivots to virtual work and medicine to increases in home-based and digital healthcare, Snyderman says the healthcare workforce and the organizations that employ them will be stretched significantly in the years to come.

For more than 30 years, Snyderman was an award-winning senior medical editor at ABC and NBC News. Her skills uniquely span the fields of medicine, science, communication and global media. She spent 25 years as a board-certified, practicing otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon at UC San Francisco and the University of Pennsylvania.

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AHA, AHIP, ANA Special Session

Tuesday, join leaders Richard J. Pollack, president/CEO, American Hospital Association; Matthew D. Eyles, president/CEO, America’s Health Insurance Plans; Ernest J. Grant, PhD, RN, FAAN, president, American Nurses Association; and moderator Melinda L. Estes, MD, president/CEO, Saint Luke’s Health System, for this fireside chat to address critical issues facing U.S. healthcare providers today.

Pollack, Eyles and Grant will address delivery of care, healthcare policy and the current election cycle.

Hear how these leaders are guiding their organizations and navigating the current healthcare debate and policy recommendations based on current trends and expectations for the future. Additionally, you will leave with a deeper understanding of the current issues across the healthcare spectrum and strategies for your organization.

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