Modern Healthcare released its annual list of the "50 Most Influential Clinical Executives," highlighting clinical leaders who "found ways to adapt, innovate and focus on the true bottom line: the patient."

Blog series: Lessons from the C-suite

About the list

For its 18th annual list of most influential clinical executives, Modern Healthcare accepted nominations for licensed or previously licensed clinicians working in the health care industry who hold the title of SVP or higher in their organizations. From a list of 150 finalists, Modern Healthcare compiled its ranking of 50 honorees, based on readers' votes and input from senior editors of Modern Healthcare. The nominees were judged against the following criteria:

• Actions the nominee took over the past year that helped their organization meets its financial, operational, and clinical goals
• Steps the nominee took to help their organization respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, including work that encouraged a culture of innovation
• Examples of ways the nominee addressed the aims of improving community health, patient experience, and clinician burnout while lowering costs

Who made the list?

Hospital and health system leaders—listed in alphabetical order—include:

• Nancy Howell Agee, president and CEO of Carilion Clinic
• Tommye Austin, SVP and chief nurse executive at University Health System (San Antonio)
• Madeline Bell, president and CEO of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Joseph Cacchione, EVP of clinical and network services at Ascension
• Elissa Charbonneau, CMO of Encompass Health
• Joanne Conroy, president and CEO of Dartmouth Health
• Steven Corwin, president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian
• Regina Cunningham, CEO of Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
• Kenneth Davis, CEO of Mount Sinai
• Eric Eskioglu, EVP and chief medical and scientific officer at Novant Health
• Gianrico Farrugia, president and CEO of Mayo Clinic
• Clive Fields, co-founder and CMO of VillageMD
• Roxanna Gapstur, president and CEO of WellSpan Health
• Alexander Garza, chief community health officer at SSM Health
• Laurie Glimcher, president and CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Marc Harrison, president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare
• James E.K. Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College
• Rod Hochman, president and CEO of Providence
• Richard Isaacs, CEO and executive director of Permanente Medical Group, president and CEO of the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, and co-CEO of the Permanente Federation
• Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health & Hospitals
• Anne Klibanski, president and CEO of Mass General Brigham
• Tomislav Mihaljevic, president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic
• Sammie Mosier, SVP and chief nurse executive at HCA Healthcare
• R. Lawrence Moss, president and CEO of Nemours Children's Health
• Janice Nevin, president and CEO of ChristianaCare
• Philip Ozuah, president and CEO of Montefiore Medicine
• Scott Rissmiller, enterprise EVP and chief physician executive at Atrium Health
• Jaewon Ryu, president and CEO of Geisinger Health
• Candice Saunders, president and CEO of WellStar Health System
• Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of UCLA Hospital System
• Saum Sutaria, CEO of Tenet Healthcare
• Susan Turney, CEO of Marshfield Clinic Health System
• Kimberlydawn Wisdom, SVP of community health and equity, and chief wellness and diversity officer at Henry Ford Health

Federal government officials—listed in alphabetical order—include:

• Rear Admiral Aisha Mix, CNO for the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service
• Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy, U.S. surgeon general at HHS
• Rochelle Walensky, director of CDC

Leaders from other organizations in the health care industry—listed in alphabetical order—include:

• Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association
• Bonnie Castillo, executive director of National Nurses United
• Karen DeSalvo, chief health officer at Google
• Ernest Grant, president of the American Nurses Association (ANA)
• Ashish Jha, White House Covid-19 response coordinator, on leave as the dean of Brown University's School of Public Health
• April Kapu, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners
• Taha Kass-Hout, director of machine learning and CMO at Amazon Web Services
• Beverly Malone, president and CEO of the National League for Nursing
• Farzad Mostashari, co-founder and CEO of Aledade
• Cheryl Pegus, EVP of health and wellness at Walmart
• Holly Rimmasch, chief clinical officer and SVP/general manager of the clinical quality business unit at Health Catalyst
• Bruce Siegel, president and CEO of America's Essential Hospitals
• Imamu Tomlinson, CEO of Vituity
• Margaret-Mary Wilson, EVP and CMO of UnitedHealth Group

(Daily Briefing is published by Advisory Board, a division of Optum, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.)

Commentary

Modern Healthcare noted that 14 of the 50 executives named to this year's "50 Most Influential Clinical Executives" list have a nursing background.

However, with over 4 million RNs working in the United States—more than any other type of health care professional—nurses are still met with barriers that make it difficult to rise to the highest ranks of their organizations. According to Modern Healthcare, nurses frequently voice concern that they don't command the same respect as medical doctors.

"We're going to have to challenge C-suite leaders," said Loressa Cole, CEO of ANA Enterprise, a coalition that includes the ANA, the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and the American Nurses Foundation. "We have to step forward and take accountability and responsibility to move this agenda forward." (Modern Healthcare, "50 Most Influential Clinical Executives" methodology, 6/20; Modern Healthcare, "50 Most Influential Clinical Executives" list, accessed 6/21; Modern Healthcare news release, 6/18; Berryman, Modern Healthcare, 6/18)