Modern Healthcare on Monday announced the 14 winners of its "Excellence in Governance" awards, recognizing leaders who "tackled the myriad challenges facing healthcare organizations of all sizes."

Methodology

For the awards, Modern Healthcare accepted nominations from Dec. 6, 2021, to Feb. 25, 2022. To be eligible, each nominee had to be a member of the board of directors of at least one health care organization, and all sectors of the health care industry were eligible.

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All nominees were then reviewed by a panel of Modern Healthcare's top editors and other judges and were judged on the following criteria:

• How the nominee fosters and guides their organization in long-term strategy, growth, profitability, innovation, and navigating significant change or transition, as well as the nominee's record for improving shareholder value (if applicable)

• The nominee's performance history in enabling and advancing their organization's culture, integrity, and reputation

• How the nominee embraces environmental, social, and governance, diversity, and drives inclusion throughout their organization

• How the nominee acts as an ambassador and advocate for their organization to advance its mission, values, and vision to improve care quality, access, and outcomes

• How the nominee shows board leadership through high ethical standards, gaining trust, and exerting their influence over peers

According to Modern Healthcare, this year's 14 honorees recognized "the need to improve the work/life balance for all employees, to bring healthcare access to disenfranchised and rural communities, to develop new care models that also tackle costs, and to improve medical school opportunities" and

"prioritize[e] turning diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental, social and governance from buzzy acronyms into real initiatives."

The 14 honorees for 'Excellence in Governance' in 2022

The honorees on this year's list were:

• John Bravman, president of Bucknell University and board chair at Geisinger Health, for his work launching the Steele Institute for Health Innovation, forming the Bucknell-Geisinger Research initiative, and supporting the search for Geisinger's first chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer

• Mark Bugher, board chair at Marshfield Clinic Health System, for his work in helping Marshfield double its number of employees, expand its hospital network from one to 11, produce more than $1 billion in annual revenue, and bridge the hospital access gap for rural communities in Wisconsin

• Susan Crown, board chair at Rush University Medical Center (RUMC), for her work establishing committees to seek out and apply for alternative funding sources to ease the burden of the pandemic on the health system, and for her work helping launch RUMC's own telehealth platform

• James DeVolld, board chair at Renown Health, for helping grow the health system into four hospital campuses and multiple primary, urgent, and specialty care sites with over 7,000 employees and a health plan with more than 180,000 members. He was also recognized for helping launch Renown's 2021 strategic plan, which included the creation of the Healthy Nevada Project, a genetic study that enrolled over 50,000 participants.

• Holly Humphrey, president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation and board chair at Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, for her work overseeing the recruitment of a diverse board of directors and her involvement in the school's initial accreditation process

• Robert LaClair, board chair at ProMedica, for his work on the changing board's charter to galvanize inclusion efforts, his work leading the board through the Covid-19 pandemic, and his work establishing the first stages of ProMedica's succession plan

Patrick Phillips, board member and former board chair at Novant Health, for helping grow Novant into a network with 800 care locations, 2,300 physicians, and 36,000 employees, and his working almost doubling Novant's community benefit from $566 million in 2013 to $1.02 billion in 2020

Michele Richardson, founder and president of Higher Education Advocates and board chair at Advocate Aurora Health, for her work in the creation of the now 26-hospital, $13 billion health system, her help creating inclusion councils and hiring initiatives, and her advisement on a variety of initiatives, including the creation of the South Side Health Community Organization in Chicago

Ron Rittenmeyer, board chair and former CEO at Tenet Healthcare, for his work helping Tenet quadruple its share price in under five years, and for overseeing the board's formation of an environmental, social, and governance committee, as well as a diversity council, which has helped increase the board's diversity from 38% when Rittenmeyer joined to 55%

Megan Shreve, board chair at WellSpan Health, for her work helping WellSpan work through a major governance restructure in which 40 boards were transitioned to 11, and her work focusing on diversity and equity, leading her to recruit more people of color and women to board and chair positions in WellSpan

Richard Sisisky, board chair at Baptist Health, Florida, for his work helping to hire a new CFO, the creation of the health system's matching gifts program for endowment, which has raised over $150 million, and his work developing a community wellness partnership with the Jewish Community Alliance

Brent Teiken, board member and former board chair at Sanford Health, for his work guiding Sanford through its first CEO transition in 24 years, a governance reset, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a variety of diversity and inclusion initiatives, as well as his work overseeing a realignment of Sanford's community investment fund with a focus on rural health

Aaron Thompson, board chair at Baptist Health, Kentucky, for leading Baptist Health's plan to improve work-life culture as well as its diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts, and his work leading Baptist Health to increase health care access with $1 billion in capital projects

Roberta Waite, incoming dean of the Georgetown University School of Nursing and board member at Trinity Health, for helping Trinity make improvements in clinical quality, safety, and health equity, as well as her leadership in Trinity's expansion of community health and well-being programs and her work leading community outreach programs throughout the pandemic

(Modern Healthcare, 4/16; Excellence in Governance 2022 Honorees, Modern Healthcare, 4/18; Excellence in Governance 2022 methodology, Modern Healthcare, 4/16)