10 Most Admired Women in Healthcare

EDITOR’S NOTE Leadership of Caring

People say compassion is a virtue, but I would like to say

compassion is hard.

Caring for a day? Easy. Caring day after day? Hard. Caring for people you love? Easy. Caring for strangers and even people you don't like? Hard.

We write poems on how our heart bleeds from the caring and giving that we do. That it feels easier to build walls and save ourselves from the daily nicks and pricks of caring. That is why we often default to nonchalant responses like 'Who cares?' or 'Whatever' than admit that we do; we care so deeply that the instinct is to protect ourselves from the hurt it can cause.

So, what does it take to care?

Grit and courage. A willingness to take the hard path of caring again and again, even when it would be so much easier to give up. And perhaps the kindness to be compassionate to yourself because you can give only what you have.

It is easier to moralize than to practice virtues. None, perhaps, have faced the dilemma of practicing compassion than the people in healthcare. The difficulties that the collective industry has faced in the past couple of years are known to all. In the face of such adversities, how do you still show up and care? These were the thoughts that compelled the team of CIOLook to go in search of Clevel women executives of the healthcare industry and gather their collective experiences in the edition of "10 Most Admired Women in Healthcare." We wanted to see from their eyes and hear their perspectives on the leadership of caring.

10 Most A d m i r e d Admired W o m e n Women in

H e a l t h c a r e Healthcare

These women have decades-spanning careers in the industry of healthcare, withstanding its turbulences, its shifts, and its changes. Through all those times, not only have these women been compassionate themselves, but they have led other people who would have their own troubles with the practice of healthcare – the practice of compassion.

As you flip the pages of this magazine, you will find interviews with ten admirable leaders who have been leading with grit, courage, and compassion. Their journeys, successes, challenges, thoughts about the healthcare industry, and their plans for the future. There are also opinion pieces written by CxOs highlighting the current trends in the healthcare industry.

May you find yourself inspired by the stories of these amazing people. Happy Reading!

Sakshi Shrivastava

Sa k sh i S h r i v a st a v a

COVER STORY

Shellie Jones

CONTENT

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Featured Person

Audrey Gregory President and CEO

Deborah DiSanzo President, Best Buy Health

Deborah L. Rice-Johnson

CEO of Diversified Businesses for Highmark Inc. and Chief Growth Officer

Halee Fischer-Wright President and CEO

Brief Company Name

AdventHealth adventhealth.com

Best Buy Health healthcare.bestbuy.com

At AdventHealth, Extending the Healing Ministry of Christ is the mission. They strive to heal and restore the body, mind and spirit.

Best Buy Health aims to enrich and save lives through technology and meaningful connections. Its strategy focuses on consumer health products, device-based emergency response services, and virtual care offerings.

Highmark Inc. highmark.com

MGMA mgma.com

Kate Walsh President and CEO

Boston Medical Center bmc.org

Kizzmekia Corbett Assistant Professor

Harvard T.H. Chan School Public Health harvard.edu

Highmark Inc. is a health insurance organization that works passionately to deliver high-quality, accessible, understandable and affordable experiences, outcomes and solutions to its customers.

MGMA helps create successful medical practices that deliver the highest-quality patient care. As the leading association for medical practice administrators and executives since 1926.

Boston Medical Center is a academic medical center and the primary teaching affiliate for Boston University School of Medicine.

The School began as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, founded in 1913 as the first professional training program of public health in America.

Leslie

Selby VP & Sales Executive

Sarah Sossong

SVP, Digital Health & Informatics

Tammy Lundstrom

SVP, Chief Medical Officer

Epic epic.com

Commonwealth Care Alliance ssossong@commonwealthcare.org

Epic codes, tests, and implements healthcare software that hundreds of millions of patients and doctors rely on to improve care and ultimately save lives around the globe.

Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA) is a multi-state integrated care system influencing innovative models of complex care nationwide.

Trinity Health trinity-health.org

Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu CEO

Medicad Cancer Foundation medicaidcancerfoundation.org

Trinity Health is one of the largest not-for-profit, Catholic health care systems in US. Nationally recognized for care and experience, their system includes 88 hospitals, 131 continuing care locations, the second largest PACE program in the country, 125 urgent care locations etc.

Medicaid Cancer Foundation (MCF) was conceived out of the need to create a much needed support system for patients, families and caregivers dealing with cancer.

Highmark is creating a proactive, dynamic, and readily accessible health plan and support team that fits an individual's unique needs.

CEO , Diversified Businesses, Highmark Inc. and Chief Growth Officer

When we think about the concept of

leadership, many individuals may assume that leadership is the same thing as management. This could not be further from the trutha leader is someone who plans to enable a plethora of innovations and work accordingly regardless of their position with an organization.

These proficient leadership charismas thrive with a vision - the ability to see the big picture of where the organization or team they are working within is headed, what it is capable of, and what it will take to get there.

Deborah L. Rice-Johnson is a resolute professional who focuses on understanding the challenges impacting the healthcare industry and has been developing a full suite of leading capabilities that have helped Highmark Inc. grow and scale its business.

She is also proud to be part of a leadership team at Highmark that is working to redefine the payerprovider relationship and deliver innovative clinical solutions that aim to improve health outcomes and lower costs.

Let us delve into an odyssey—

A Spark of Enabling Reliability

Deborah L. Rice-Johnson, the CEO of Diversified Businesses for Highmark Inc. and Chief Growth Officer , started her career in the pharmacy department more than 30 years ago at what was then called the Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania. That organization

Highmark has a strong presence in the communities it serves.

Pictured: Highmark team members and thousands of good neighbors donated essential items to those impacted by the temporary closing of the Tops Supermarket on Jefferson Ave in Buffalo after the mass shooting in May of this year. This included drop-offs and hands-on support at the First Fruits Food Pantry at Lincoln United Methodist Church, Buffalo Community Fridge, and FeedMStreamliningore WNY.

merged with the Pennsylvania Blue Shield in 1996 to create Highmark, which is now one of America's leading health insurance organizations.

She worked her way up to management roles related to strategic development, operations, IT, and customer service and became president of Highmark Inc. in 2010. Earlier this year, Deb became CEO of Diversified Businesses for Highmark Inc. and Chief Growth Officer.

As CEO of Diversified Businesses for Highmark Inc., Deb is responsible for Highmark subsidiaries, including; United Concordia Dental, the sixth largest dental plan nationally that serves the largest voluntary dental program in the world with TRICARE; HM Insurance Group, a top ten national stop loss carrier with additional managed care reinsurance solutions; and Helion, a healthcare technology and services firm that helps payers cultivate high-performing networks while empowering providers to operate at their best.

As chief growth officer, she is responsible for pursuing various strategic partnerships, affiliations and acquisitions that enable Highmark to unlock the shared value to organizations and transform healthcare.

Highmark doesn't just want to improve the patient-clinician relationship-the organization wants to transform the way it operates.

In terms of challenges, years ago, her late husband, Harry, was diagnosed with cancer. In an instant, Deb found herself on the other side of the healthcare system and filled with all the fear and concern that comes with caring for a sick loved one.

She recalls the time and energy spent travelling from one facility to the next, needing to remember to bring medications, imaging and other essentials while navigating a labyrinthine system of care. This is the industry in which she had built a career, and even though when they had phenomenal doctors and nurses, the experience was still challenging—not just for Harry but for Deb's entire family.

This inspired Deb to take a patient and family-centric approach to her job and to focus on the customer first. Highmark has built products and services that simplify the experience for its customers. As an eminent healthcare organization, Highmark also formed partnerships that have taken on the rising costs of healthcare and increased access to care for its members. Deb shares how fulfilling it is to be part of this work because she never forgets what it's like to be on the other side of care.

Integrating Excellence

Dating back to the Great Depression, Highmark has

served generations of members, patients and communities through the best and most challenging moments in their lives. The organization is driven by its mission: to create a remarkable health experience, freeing people to be their best. Its vision is a world where everyone embraces health.

While its mission remains its North Star, Highmark has grown to create remarkable health experiences for more customers and communities in new and innovative ways. It is part of a national blended health organization that brings together a diverse portfolio of businesses that cover a spectrum of essential healthrelated needs in service to its customers and communities, including: health insurance, healthcare delivery, population health management, dental solutions, reinsurance solutions, and innovative, technology solutions.

Highmark's diverse family of businesses enables a unique opportunity to reimagine the healthcare experience to become one that is simplified, personalized and proactive.

A Proficient Leader

As president of Highmark Inc., Deb had the pleasure of leading a remarkable team for her company's multistate health insurance organization. She has completed

successful affiliations in Delaware, West Virginia, Western and Northeastern New York, as well as a merger in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Today, she is proud to say that Highmark Health Plans are among the largest Blue Plans in the country, serving more than 6 million members, and Highmark Inc.'s revenue has grown to approximately $22 billion.

Deb is also proud to be part of a leadership team at Highmark that is working to redefine the payerprovider relationship and deliver innovative clinical solutions that aim to improve health outcomes and lower costs. One of its signature programs is True Performance, a value-based reimbursement program for primary care physicians that has achieved nearly $2.5 billion in avoided cost savings since 2017 due to better health management.

In her current role as Chief Growth Officer, Deb focuses on understanding the challenges impacting the industry and has been working on developing a full suite of leading capabilities which have helped to grow and scale the business. Highmark achieves growth through a variety of strategies, including organic growth in membership, strategic affiliations, provider partnerships and joint ventures, and digital solutions.

A Plethora of Novelties

Highmark's mission is to create a remarkable health

experience, freeing people to be their best. To achieve that mission, the organization ensures that its team members are working freely to do their best by creating a welcoming environment that celebrates and values its different lived experiences. Listening to its team members and creating a safe place for new ideas is the best way to create products and offerings that reflect the needs of Highmark's diverse customers.

It's crucial that Highmark maximizes opportunities for individuals with disabilities—both within the organization and in the broader community—to be at their best. Highmark is stronger as a company and stronger as a community when it grows and nurtures the skills, creativity and lived experiences of individuals with disabilities.

Highmark is proud to annually be named a "Best Place to Work" for individuals with disabilities in the Disability Equality Index (DEI®), a national benchmarking survey to measure disability workplace inclusion, and always strives to make Highmark more accessible and compassionate.

Adding to this, Deb says, “Similarly, we are committed to our Veterans. I have been privileged to chair Highmark's Military Advisory Council, which strives to make our blended health organization a career destination for Veterans. Our team members who have

Deb Rice-Johnson has a passion for Veteran-focused causes and serves as the Chair of the Highmark Military Advisory Council.

Pictured: Some of Highmark’s Veteran employees supporting “ Wreaths Across America (WAA) at the Cemetery of the Alleghenies.

Deb is responsible for pursuing various strategic partnerships, affiliations and acquisitions that enable Highmark to unlock the shared value to organizations and transform healthcare.

served our country possess unique leadership skills, experiences and a team-oriented approach. They strengthen Highmark, the communities in which we work and live, and our nation.”

“Our team members who have served our country are essential to carrying out that mission. Veteran inclusion in our workforce helps us deliver on the needs of our military members—including the more than 1.8 million military and family members worldwide covered through the TRICARE dental program offered by Highmark organization United Concordia Dental,” she expresses.

Also, with the size of Highmark comes the ability to make real impacts in the communities in its footprint. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Highmark's blended health organization has invested more than $1.4 billion to support its customers, providers and communities.

“Highmark is also driven by our four Core behaviors. First, we place the customer at the center of everything that we do. Second, we aspire to have transformational leadership that drives us to create the future of health care. Third, we trust working together to achieve organizational goals. And, finally, we value purposeful execution—we value outcomes, not activities,” shares Deb.

Evolving Around the Emerging Technologies

Working in new ways and forming new partnerships is how Highmark solves rising problems, and it's how this organization innovates. That applies within Highmark and in how it works and partners with other industry leaders. Highmark is working with fellow innovators like Google and Verily to deliver high-tech, high-touch and curated health experiences to more customers.

Instead of asking the customer to figure out the health system, Highmark has asked how the entire health experience should be re-engineered with customers at the center. Its technology partnerships are designed to eliminate the fragmentation and frustration that people currently have in their health experience and replace it with a more personalized, technology-driven approach.

In addition to offering a seamless, simpler and smarter encounter at every step for patients, the organization is freeing clinicians from time-consuming administrative

Highmark goes above and beyond to help members get the care they need.

Highmark was proactive in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic by quickly assembling mobile testing units and distributing masks to all of our members.

Pictured: Highmark stands with frontline workers at a free testing event in Central PA.

burdens and providing them with timely data and actionable information about each patient.

Highmark is taking the information and preferences of the customer, applying analytics, and creating a proactive, dynamic, and readily accessible health plan and support team that fits an individual's unique needs. Highmark doesn't just want to improve the patientclinician relationship—the organization wants to transform the way it operates.

Envisioning Perpetual Authenticity

Sharing her opinions on what changes Deb wants to incorporate in the healthcare sector, she states, “I would like to create a more seamless experience that allows members to engage with their health more easily. If they, or a loved one is having a health event, I want them to have access to quality care no matter where they reside, and I want them to understand their options and benefits so that they can make the best decisions. When we can remove some of the challenges between payers and providers, I believe we can make a real difference, and we are leading that work.”

Adding to that, if someone is otherwise healthy, she says, “I want them to be empowered to engage with their health by providing personalized support so that

they stay that way. This means monitoring their health consistently and educating them on which preventive exams to schedule. It also means taking the entire person into account, from dental care to mental health. If we can fix the fragmentation in the health insurance industry, we can improve health outcomes-- that's what matters.”

Indulging in the Words of the Wise

Sharing her advice for the budding aspirants who are willing to venture into the healthcare sector, Deb shares, “Specifically, when it comes to health insurance, you need to be willing to step outside of the traditional health insurance environment.”

“Explore non-traditional solutions that will enable you and your business to differentiate and be willing to take risks to fulfil your mission. Never forget your why – the customer and engage your teams along the way (who can bring diverse customer perspectives),” she adds.

Embracing the Future Roadmap

Highmark is committed to creating a Living Health model that builds a better system for its customers and clinicians through innovative solutions and partnerships to deliver them.

Growth is the engine of Living Health. Growth helps the organization to maintain its position as a national leader among Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans, strengthens its ability to shape care locally, and improves its cost competitiveness.

That translates to better care, lower cost and greater access for its members and patients. Deb is focused on achieving growth in a variety of ways—including organic growth in membership, strategic affiliations, provider partnerships and joint ventures, and digital solutions.

“Ultimately, growing allows us to boost healthcare affordability and accessibility, better engage members and clinicians, and continue a legacy of communityoriented healthcare service,” concludes Deb.

Deb wants to create a more seamless experience that allows members to more easily engage with their health.

Mr. Ahmed Zebeib, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, QLM Qatar Life & Medical Insurance

Background: QLM Life and Medical Insurance is

considered as the largest health insurance company in Qatar and the only specialized company that leads the health insurance sector through its advanced services and flexible insurance programs that suit all segments of society in Qatar.

We live in a world that has become highly dependent on information technology in management, especially with managing a large volume of data, as is the case in health insurance. Therefore, our vision in this field was to develop a system capable of absorbing any volume of data and managing it effectively in the most efficient way possible. This will, in turn, positively reflect on the speed of responding to the requirements of our customers and the requirements of medical service providers at the same time.

The advancement of technology benefit both insured members and insurance companies; QLM is no exception. QLM is constantly innovating and growing; we capitalized on the extensive data, experience, and technology advancement to build an outstanding insurtech to guarantee excellence in our services. At the same time, it gives us a real time feedback on operations. The development of our solutions was highly sophisticated as it involved many parties internally as well as externally. We’ve invested in developing a highly sophisticated solution involving both internal and external parties.

We managed to build a system through an interactive electronic platform that automatically approves without the need for human intervention except in rare

cases, which shortens the time for issuing approval to a record time where the patient experiences a seamless process. This electronic platform helps health centers communicate, get the right information, and make the whole transaction an easy journey for both parties. All this is in the interest of the client/patient, who will feel that they are receiving prompt and a high standard of service.

Today, our systems are all online and fully integrated with healthcare providers inside as well as outside Qatar; the provider can at a fingertip verify eligibility, obtain approval, and submit a claim all online without the need for any direct interaction with our team. The secret behind this is the claims auto-approval/autoadjudication; our systems are equipped with all international medical coding that are mapped together in the back end of the system. Therefore, any coding the provider is using is mapped and auto adjudicated in the back end, and the decision is communicated to the provider by the system.

The crown jewel of our IT platform is the Artificial intelligence (AI) that we have developed. Underwriting in health insurance is always seen as risky and needs extra attention; our AI module analyzes the data provided by the client and, at the same time, analyzes the existing QLM data measuring behavior, trend, frequency, etc. Thus, suggesting an appropriate premium with the prediction of a loss ratio based on the suggested premium.

Our AI is constantly monitoring the behavior of providers in real-time and alerting our team of any

abnormal behavior that is taking place; it is monitoring the auto-adjudication module and correcting any errors that may exist during the process.

We are constantly evolving and growing as the leading Medical and Life insurer in Qatar; as we rely heavily on tech, we will continue investing where appropriate to maximize the satisfaction of all our partners. In QLM, we believe that insurtech is the present and future. We will continue playing our role and assessing the markets worldwide while simultaneously be at the forefront when it comes to tech and for others to follow.

Mr. Ahmed Zebeib, Deputy Chief Execuve Officer, QLM Qatar Life & Medical Insurance

Leslie Selby, VP & Sales Executive Epic

Leslie Selby

In the olden days, when Kings wanted to know what

ailed their populace, they walked among them in disguise. They listened to their struggles, hopes, and dreams. This helped them understand the demands of the citizens and form policies accordingly. On similar lines, Leslie Selby listens closely to the frontline workers in healthcare and drives change accordingly.

Leslie is a VP & Sales Executive at Epic, an organization working at the intersection of healthcare and IT to help the world get well, stay well, and help future generations be healthier.

Leslie listens to professionals in the healthcare industry from all verticals for insights that will help the organization cater to the clients better and helps the clients get the technology according to their needs.

Insights Success reached out to Leslie to listen to her two-decade journey in healthcare, what drives her, the impact she has left in the industry, and what she looks forward to next.

Below are the highlights of the interview:

Brief our audience about your journey as a business leader to your current position at Epic. What challenges have you had to overcome to reach where you are today?

My first role in healthcare, other than as a patient, was as a coordinator for a private duty home health agency. I worked with care providers and families to help patients live safely in their homes within their budgets. I was keenly aware of how critical it was for information to go between people and systems, but this was in the mid to late '90s. Interoperability and integration weren't words that we used, and there was no single integrated system that could keep all the patient information together so that ED, inpatient, ambulatory, home health, and the patient could share the same information.

Today I talk with customers and prospective customers about exactly that-what's possible, how it's being done at leading sites, and how they can achieve their goals within their budget. As Epic has expanded, I've helped with many sales in new countries. The learning curve for all of us was and continues to be significant, but the challenges are mostly the same wherever we go. Organizations need integration, which means one

single system wherever possible so that they can reduce their costs and take better care of patients. A big part of my role is to help them get what they already know they need.

Tell us something more about your company and its mission and vision.

Epic is a privately held healthcare software company that provides electronic medical records for large and well-respected care organizations such as Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and Cambridge University Hospitals, UK. Our focus is improving healthcare so that people can get well and stay well and future generations can be healthier. Our software helps providers save lives, improve community-wide health, and reduce healthcare costs by eliminating waste and allowing staff to work more efficiently. With broad adoption among academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, our software is instrumental in training the next generation of clinicians and helping researchers advance medical knowledge.

Enlighten us on how you have impacted healthcare through your expertise in the market.

Most of what I've learned about healthcare has been through the lens of the people on the front lines serving

“I've listened to many thousands of caregivers talk about their challenges, hopes, and dreams. My role is to listen, understand, and drive change.”

patients and the executives who support those individuals. I am certified in our ambulatory EMR, and although I haven't led an install for many years, I greatly value the time I spent sitting shoulder to shoulder with doctors, nurses, and other staff during go-lives.

I've listened to many thousands of caregivers talk about their challenges, hopes, and dreams. My role is to listen, understand, and drive change. That could come in the form of enhancement ideas that I share with our developers, updates to our service methodologies, or new ways to use the system to effect change.

Describe in detail the values and the work culture that drives your organization.

Teaching the culture is a core expectation for leaders at Epic. We review key concepts regularly and post our principles and values (we call them the 10 commandments) throughout the campus. Examples include business principles such as “Do not go public” and “Do not acquire or be acquired.” We are and will remain employee-owned and privately held so that our focus remains on our software and customers rather than outside investors. Others are specific to how we work with customers, such as “Keep commitments” and “Expectations must equal reality.” Keeping promises has been a major factor in our #1 ratings in competitive comparisons by groups such as KLAS Research for many years.

In our day-to-day work, we are a flat company without overly formal management structures. Staff are on a first-name basis, and everyone at the company can go to whoever is needed to solve a problem or move an idea forward. We applaud assertiveness and effective badgering.

What, according to you, could be the next significant change in the healthcare sector? How is your company preparing to be a part of that change?

Twenty years ago, everyone was talking about the what and how in healthcare software. The industry is finally shifting in a major way toward the “why.” Organizations complete the hard work of implementing EMRs, training staff, and gathering data because that's what is essential for the magic to happen—innovation and discoveries that improve health within communities and countries.

Cosmos, Epic's national research repository, has the most potential to change healthcare in the coming years. Cosmos consolidates patient data from multiple Epic customers into a single repository that is accessible to researchers and other staff at organizations that contribute data. This provides a larger data pool than researchers typically have access to and allows observational studies that get new knowledge to the point of care quickly. Cosmos provides a HIPAA-defined limited data set for 150+ million patients and could grow to 200+ million as more customers join.

What Cosmos really highlights is the need for collaboration to move healthcare forward. One of my favorite quotes from Carl Dvorak, Epic's President, is “we cannot each individually be the best at everything.” Cosmos wouldn't be possible without multiple organizations coming together. Take a look at www.epicresearch.org to see the great work this collaborative community is doing. They are changing the world.

Where do you envision yourself to be in the long run, and what are your future goals for Epic?

Wow, 20+ years feels like a long run already! I'm a big believer in accountability, and I feel that because Epic has tools and data that can revolutionize healthcare, we have a responsibility to get them to the point of care to help as many patients and providers as possible.

In the coming years, I look forward to meeting and advising healthcare leaders around the world on systems that help cure diseases faster, save peoples' lives, and bring back joy and smiles for caregivers. As a patient and a mom, I'm excited about promoting new capabilities to help people take better care of themselves and their families.