Virgil Strickler
The Ohio State Fair chief on last year’s tragic midway death Page 14
FutureReady Columbus
Business leaders push the education nonprofit in a new direction.
Closing Time
The risks and rewards of the red-hot M&A market
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August 2018
2018 HR Excellence Awards Page 61
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Urban Acres
Can farming, city living and population growth get along? Page 38
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Healthcare Achievement Awards
2018
Stories by Dave Ghose and Chloe Teasley
One is a minister who discovered housing was the key to improving his neighborhood’s health. Another is a retired hairdresser who spends every Monday volunteering at one of the oldest independent cancer clinics in the country. A third is a California-bred physician who became a pioneering Columbus public health advocate. Their stories, backgrounds and
+ Photos by Rob Hardin
beliefs are often very different. But each—along with the 14 other honorees in Columbus CEO’s sixth annual Healthcare Achievement Awards— does share something in common: All are making our city a better, more healthy place—and that’s something worth celebrating. Healthcare, of course, is a massive, complicated industry, representing 18 percent of our country’s gross domestic product. As it touches us in so many
ways—and is a critical component of a robust business environment—it makes sense for a business publication to honor the best of the best in the field— the devoted practitioners, innovative thinkers and caring volunteers who promote good health in our region. In the pages that follow, we celebrate six winners and 11 finalists who’ve won the admiration of peers, co-coworkers and community leaders. We think they’ll impress you, too. March 2018 l ColumbusCEO
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Teresa Long Columbus Health Department
Lifetime Achievement Award In early February, Dr. Teresa Long returned to the Columbus Health Department’s historic headquarters on the Near East Side. The purpose of the visit—her first since retiring at the end of 2017— was a photo shoot, but it quickly turned into a family reunion of sorts. Like clockwork, office staff, volunteers, custodians and others would turn a corner, spot their former boss, light up with a smile and then hustle over for a hug or to catch up. And Long was just as happy to see them, greeting folks by name and connecting with them on a personal level, like a best friend you hadn’t seen since the last holiday get-together. That warmth was a big part of Long’s successful 15-year tenure as the city’s “top doc,” as former Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman used to call her. The first female Columbus health commissioner oversaw 40 programs, 500 employees and a budget of more than $50 million. In that role—and in her 16 previous years as the agency’s medical director and assistant health commissioner—she pulled together wide-ranging coalitions to address public health threats as diverse as the H1N1 flu virus, infant mortality, childhood immunizations and the AIDS epidemic. “One of the reasons Dr. Long was so effective is that she is always approachable … and I think her accessibility reflects her passion for public health at the level of the individual,” says Dr. William Martin, dean of the Ohio State University College of Public Health, where Dr. Long also serves as an adjunct associate professor. Once, however, her personality wasn’t considered a strength. Growing up in San Francisco, she fell in love with the ocean and set out to become a marine biologist. But she abandoned that plan in college, even though she was at the top of her class, when a professor told her she “smiled too much” to be taken seriously as a scientist. She
“There’s so much we don’t know yet around the science and about the care and about how we meaningfully help people along this journey.”
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switched to medicine, with a focus on pediatrics, but wondered if she could have a greater impact if she reached her patients sooner. She told the leader of her pediatrics program she wanted to switch to the new field of “preventive medicine.” His response? He demanded she get a psychiatric evaluation. “He literally thought I was crazy—I mean, truly crazy,” Long says. Undeterred, Long completed a preventive medicine residency with the California Department of Health Services and soon found herself on the front lines of the emerging AIDS epidemic while working for the San Francisco Department of Public Health in the early 1980s. That experience was transformative, she says, teaching her the importance of listening and forming relationships “to get to the bottom of what was going on and then figure out how we can do better.” She continued that approach after she was recruited to Columbus in 1986. To succeed as the city’s top doctor, “you’ve got to be the city’s best listener,” Martin says. “You can understand the science, you can understand what the health problems are and the public health problems, but it’s listening to communities that really gives you the information you need to solve problems. And I think Teresa is a wonderful listener.” In Columbus, Long continued to address the AIDS crisis. Other major accomplishments included the first office of minority health in Ohio, a series of farmers’ markets providing fresh fruits and vegetables to underserved populations, the Project Love coalition that increased childhood immunization rates from 40 percent to 80 percent and the Infant Mortality Task Force that led to a communitywide plan addressing the issue. Jose Rodriguez, the manager of the Project Love initiative, credits its success to Long’s ability to bring together critical stakeholders, including competitive central Ohio hospital executives. “That’s a unique gift,” says Rodriquez, who’s now the director of external relations and strategic initiatives for the OSU College of Public Health. In retirement, Long, an Upper Arlington resident, expects to travel more and spend more time in her summer cottage in northern Ontario. She remains interested in pressing public health issues, such as food insecurity
Finalists Lifetime Achievement Awards 2018 Peter Pema
Radiology at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, where he’s been an important figure in turning the OhioHealth
Neuroscience Center into a nationally known stroke referral center. A neurointerventional radiologist, Pema performs a variety of surgeries to treat several neurological conditions such as strokes, aneurysms and vascular malformations, using X-rays to guide micro catheters through blood vessels leading into the brain. Pema’s innovations and leadership in stroke care have attracted additional healthcare providers to central Ohio while advancing treatment for patients.
chairing such initiatives as the Ohio Tobacco Control Resource Group, the State Planning Committee for Health Education in Ohio and the Ohio Rheumatic Diseases Coalition at the Ohio Department of Health. Wills has emphasized collaboration throughout his career. Over the decades, he’s worked to develop legislation and strategies to address health challenges ranging from the AIDS epidemic to post-9/11 emergency response efforts to prescription drug abuse. Wills is also a clinical assistant professor with
the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he was instrumental in getting fourth-year medical students more involved in health policy formation and advocacy efforts on behalf of patients.
Radiologist, Riverside Radiology & Interventional Associates Dr. Peter Pema is a pioneer in the field of neurointerventional radiology. Using X-ray guidance to insert devices or drugs into blood vessels, Pema and his colleagues at Riverside Radiology & Interventional Associates give patients a better chance of surviving strokes, a leading cause of death. Pema also serves as the chair of the Department of
Jon F. Wills Ohio Osteopathic Association In February, Jon F. Wills retired from the Ohio Osteopathic Foundation after leading the organization for more than four decades. Formerly the longestserving state executive director in the osteopathic profession, Wills was a strong advocate for the field that emphasizes a “whole-person” approach to treatment and care. He represented the profession before state agencies and in the Ohio General Assembly, while also
and the opioid crisis, which she and others liken to the AIDS epidemic. Just as with AIDS, public health leaders need to remove the stigma associated with victims, as well as do a better job understanding the complexity and context around the issue. “There’s so much we don’t know yet around the science and about the care and about how we
meaningfully help people along this journey,” Long says. Martin is discussing with Long deepening her role at Ohio State. “Even though she’s retired, we don’t want her to be retired from public health in general,” he says. “We want her to be part of the public health community so long as she’s in Ohio.”
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A message from Signet Accel: Along with his peers and CEO Magazine, John’s devoted Signet Accel associates applaud his steady leadership and passion for creating an environment that perpetuates a commitment to the greater good. It is an honor to work by his side to further our mission of healthcare data integration, as well as to deepen our core belief that healthcare data is indeed more than code. “More Than Code” is John’s mantra believing each data point represents a real person in need of receiving care and he created Avec® to allow clinicians better access to data that helps researchers understand, treat and, ultimately, cure. We are proud to work and grow beside you! Congratulations and Well-Deserved! — Your Signet Accel Team
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Sue Gordon Columbus Cancer Clinic Volunteer, LifeCare Alliance
Volunteer of the Year Eight years ago, Sue Gordon began volunteering at the Columbus Cancer Clinic, one of the oldest independent cancer clinics in the country. She figured she’d try it for a few months or maybe a year and then move on. Today, Gordon is still showing up every Monday at the clinic, which provides low-cost and free cancer screenings and mammograms at its offices on West Mound Street on the West Side. She started out answering the phones, but her duties have expanded to include weighing patients, taking blood pressures and lending a sympathetic ear to those nervous about what their tests might show. Gordon even has a white lab coat with her name on it. “Some people look at me and think I’m a doctor,” Gordon says with a laugh. “Nope. Not a doctor, not even a nurse. I don’t have any medical background.” That doesn’t mean she hasn’t had a big impact. Financial struggles led the Columbus Cancer Clinic in 2005 to join LifeCare Alliance, an umbrella healthcare nonprofit best known for managing Meals on Wheels programs in Franklin, Madison, Marion, Champaign and Logan counties. The consolidation of back-office services under LifeCare Alliance has provided a critical financial benefit to the clinic, which serves mostly low-income folks. But volunteers such as Gordon also have been important in keeping the organization going while other independent cancer clinics have closed. If Gordon or another volunteer is working the front desk, then LifeCare Alliance doesn’t need to pay someone to do the job. “I don’t know how you replace people like Sue,” says Charles Gehring, CEO of LifeCare Alliance. “She is just a crusader for this stuff and has been wonderful and helped out clients I know independently over the years.” Gordon’s volunteer work grew out of her own experiences with cancer.
After she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, she had a lumpectomy and her lymph nodes removed. Two years later, she suffered a reoccurrence, which resulted in a mastectomy. She credits family support and a positive outlook for helping her get through the health crisis. “I made up my mind, and I said I can either sit back and cry about it or pull myself up by the bootstraps and fight it head on, and that’s what I chose to do,” says Gordon, who’s been cancer-free since 1997.
Twelve years ago, a friend recruited her to join the Grove City-based Florence Grossman Cancer Ray group, a fundraising organization that supports the Columbus Cancer Clinic. That role then led to her more direct volunteer work at the clinic. “She does a lot of the groundwork,” Gehring says, “and that’s harder to find in this modern age, to get people to show up week after week after week.” Gordon typically spends about six hours every Monday at the clinic. She
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Sue Gordon in the Columbus Cancer Clinic’s wig room also remains deeply involved with the Grossman Ray Group, adopting a family dealing with cancer during the holidays and raising money through the group’s annual card party—$1,500 in 2016. She’s grown to love the staff at the clinic, too, and she’s managed to bond with patients despite some significant barriers. “We get a lot of people who can’t even speak English, and we provide them with a translator,” she says. She often shares her own experiences
with nervous patients. “I kind of give them a little background and tell them it’s not as scary as what they think,” she says. “And if somebody thinks they maybe have breast cancer, I tell them I’m living proof that there is life after cancer. It kind of calms their fears.” Gordon remains dedicated to the cause. “People say, ‘When are you going to quit?’ ” says Gordon, 69, a retired hairdresser who lives in German Village. “I say, ‘I guess I’ll know when the time is right.’ But right now, I just don’t
feel like quitting.” And her friends at the Columbus Cancer Clinic and LifeCare Alliance are glad to hear that. “Her passion and selflessness has left a lasting mark on the Columbus Cancer Clinic, LifeCare Alliance and the central Ohio community as a whole,” wrote Bethany Molnar, grants and data coordinator for LifeCare Alliance in her Healthcare Achievement Award nomination form. “Without her dedication, the agency truly would be unable to help all those in need.” March 2018 l ColumbusCEO
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“With this company I’m pretty excited about the fact that we can be a participant—through data—in finding a cure to some disease out there. That’s pretty damn exciting.”
John Raden
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John Raden CEO, Signet Accel
Executive of the Year John Raden couldn’t have predicted the circumstances that led to his current position at Signet Accel and subsequent contributions to healthcare. While Raden was working in international business—not at all in the healthcare industry—a sudden family health emergency was the catalyst for him to step out of his role with the company and opt instead to be with his family. He was living in Maine for eight months before he got an unexpected call about a new position. “An old friend called and said, ‘We’ve got a company you need to look at. It’s got 300 employees’—that’s a lot of employees in the state of Maine,” he says. “That’s how I got into healthcare.” While Raden was working for another electronic healthcare record company for behavioral health, he was recruited to join Signet Accel. The technology behind Signet’s product, Avec, was created at Ohio State University’s Bioinformatics Group. Once OSU’s Tech Commercialization Office knew it had a viable, sellable product, it struck an agreement on the outside with Akron-based Signet. While Signet was staffing up its new company, Raden was contacted. Avec takes disparate data sets and populates them in one place. “Most everyone races to the idea that it’s just an electronic health record,” Raden says, but it’s actually taking data sets that are all from different places and making them operable together. For example, if a patient is referred to a specialist by their primary care provider who then does tests and records the results, those results stay with the specialist. “We can connect all those data sources into one single pane of glass for providers, researchers, specialty organizations, translational medicine. That’s what we do.” Raden is especially excited about the way Avec can aid researchers in
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Congratulations to Rev. John Edgar HealthCare Achievement Pathway to Population Award Honoree Thank you, Rev. Edgar, for being a change agent on the South Side and bringing the community together to make a positive impact on the social determinants of health. We are proud to partner with you and Community Development for All People on the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families initiative to create a hopeful future for our community.
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their fight to find cures for diseases. “With this company I’m pretty excited about the fact that we can be a participant—through data—in finding a cure to some disease out there,” he says. “That’s pretty damn exciting.” Hassan Zahir, manager of client deployment at Signet, wrote of Raden on his Healthcare Achievement Award nomination form, “John is unique in the fact that his experience in large corporate environments has been able to effectively translate to a startup environment.” During Raden’s tenure at Signet Accel, he has more than tripled employees, secured one of the largest series A financing rounds Ohio has ever seen and led a complete redesign of its technology platform. “We’ve made a conscious decision to rebuild the product,” says Raden. “When you think of technology being 13, 14, 15 years old—that’s really old. … The fact that we rebuilt in 2017, and it has all the current products and technologies in the stack—that’s a big milestone. “The next [milestone] is that we have continually worked with our clients to listen to them, and we’ve added great features on functionality to the product that have really broadened it out in a big way,” he adds. Not only is Raden a business whiz, he is a good leader to boot. Zahir also wrote of Raden that when he says he “works for his associates,” it isn’t mere lip service. Zahir says Raden is a servant leader. He is always available for the thoughts and concerns of his team and constantly works to mentor and grow associates while offering them a good work/life balance. “When you look at our associates—our associates are really who we are—and we’ve got some really great people,” says Raden. When he looks toward the horizon, Raden sees Signet Accel’s Avec becoming a market fixture that is able to do what competitors have not. His aspirations are for more than just revenue. “We’re getting it to market as fast as we can. Our competitor is really interesting—it’s all the failed centralized models that have been in the marketplace for 13-15 years,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times I hear this is that ‘if you can do what you say you can do, this is unbelievable’—and we can. … [So] let’s watch what we can do for healthcare.”
Finalists Executive of the Year Nick Lashutka President & CEO, Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, OCHA Foundation & Ohio Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) Nick Lashutka is a heavyweight lifter for children’s healthcare in Ohio. He spends his time at the helm of not one, but three different organizations all working to benefit children and children’s hospitals in the state, one of which he began himself in 2010—the Ohio Chil-
dren’s Hospital Foundation, which utilizes grants and government funding to be used by Ohio Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions
for Patient Safety. With his oversight, much has been accomplished, including the formation of a research arm of OCHA called Ohio Children’s Hospital Association Research Collaborative, which was formed when Gov. John Kasich awarded OCHA $4 million to do research on urgent children’s health issues. Additionally, SPS protected 7,700 children from serious harm and saved over $118 million in healthcare costs under Lashutka’s leadership.
Spence Fisher
Michael Morgan
Executive Vice President, Memorial Health
CEO, Updox
For the past 13 years, Spence Fisher has been part of an effort to strengthen Memorial Health’s oncefeeble finances with his unique background in microbiology and finance. Fisher began by evaluating statements and offering suggestions that have helped get it back on its feet. But he didn’t stop there. Fisher can also take credit for reinstating the anesthesia program, recruiting much-needed primary care physicians, expanding practices into Plain City, Richwood and Urbana, Ohio, and negotiating collaborative partnerships with other organizations. One such collaboration—with the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center—resulted in The Heart Partnership, a collaboration that utilizes cardiology physicians from OSU. Now, Memorial Hospital is Memorial Health System, thanks in part to Fisher’s strategic contributions in finance, collaboration and leadership.
Before Michael Morgan joined Updox in 2012, the company offered a secure communication channel to independent physicians that acted as one home for all faxes, lab results, referrals, appointment requests and other medical documents. Updox is still doing that job, but with Morgan’s leadership, it has expanded to include independent pharmacists as well. Along with expanded reach, Updox has seen 2,400 percent in revenue growth and the addition of 2.8 million users since 2012. In addition to these business milestones, Morgan is a passionate mentor of college students and recent graduates, working in particular with Otterbein University, his alma-mater, to develop a program for interns placed in startups. He also helped develop the university’s STEAM Innovation Center, which offers support and lab space to startups and manufacturers.
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Updox Michael Morgan, CEO
Healthcare Trailblazer Updox is running out of room in its Frantz Road offices. Fueled by $12.7 million in venture capital—the largest single round given to a central Ohio company in 2017—the healthcare communications software startup added some 40 new employees over the past six months, bringing its grand total to 100 or so. That hiring binge highlights the company’s impressive upward trajectory.
Founded in 2009 with four employees, Updox now serves more than 300,000 users and 72 million patients, while its software is integrated with more than 100 types of electronic health records. Last year, the company strengthened its ties with pharmacies through a partnership with Creative Pharmacist, a Georgia software startup that serves more than 1,000 independent pharmacies. And this spring, Updox—named VentureOhio’s 2017 Growth Stage Company of the Year—will move into more spacious and stylish digs in Dublin’s new Bridge Park development. “The big thing that we talk about is simplifying the business of healthcare,” says Updox CEO Michael Morgan. “That’s really what we’re
rallying behind because that’s what the industry needs. Simplification leads to better care and better costs and better businesses.” The idea for Updox came from Dr. Andrew Barbash, a neurologist from Rockville, Maryland, with an active telemedicine practice who was looking for a better way to communicate with patients and healthcare providers throughout the country. He came up with the name Updox and, through a friend, connected with Mark Shary, a central Ohio serial entrepreneur. The pair and two others—Mike Witting and Tobin Juday—founded the company, and in 2012, they were joined by the current CEO Morgan, who previously worked for the Kansas-based health-
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care IT company Netsmart. “The big problem was electronic health records were being adopted at record rates, and it digitized everything inside of a practice,” Morgan says. “There was no easy, secure way to manage the communications with everybody outside of the practice, including the patients or other physicians, the care team and anybody else. Everything was still manual. It was phone calls. It was paper-based and even old-fashioned mail, and it wasn’t conducive for the patient. What the patient needed is this real-time communication about their care.” Through its messaging network and platform of apps, Updox provides a more secure means than email for
Finalists Healthcare Trailblazer Award 2018 Neal Patel, DDS Infinite Smiles Neal Patel is both an accomplished dentist and a sought-after educator who’s lectured and trained thousands of dentists on the use of high-tech dental equipment. Patel has worked with Dentsply Sirona, the world’s largest dental manufacturer, on developing breakthroughs in medical imaging and treatment. After opening his Powell dental practice
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio Dee Anders, CEO and Executive Director
Michael Morgan
The Columbus Ronald McDonald House is the largest in the world. Located next to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, it offers 137 guest rooms, allowing families to stay close to their children as they undergo medical care. Under the leadership of CEO Dee Anders, the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio also has expanded its services beyond its guest house. In June 2017, the nonprofit opened its first Ronald McDonald Family Room in central Ohio. The 1,000-square-footspace next to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital offers a comforting place within a medical facility. Amenities include a kitchen and dining area, reclining
Infinite Smiles in 2008, Patel has remained active with Dentsply Sirona, performing more than 300 lectures to fellow dentists on multiple continents, including 70 live surgeries and dozens of training sessions per year. “He has risen to this status in dentistry in a surprisingly short amount of time,” says Michael Augins, group senior vice president for U.S. commercial organization for Dentsply Sirona. “He is the youngest speaker that
is qualified to conduct our advanced training seminars.”
chairs, a workspace with complimentary Wi-Fi and complimentary laundry and shower services. “It is truly an honor to be the first hospital in central Ohio to offer the Ronald McDonald Family Room to the families of our NICU patients,” says
Brian Jepson, president of Riverside Methodist. “While our care teams work diligently to improve the lives of our youngest patients, the new family room allows us to extend that same compassionate care to our NICU families.”
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communicating digitally in the heavily regulated field of healthcare. The company also made a strategic decision to focus on small practices rather than hospitals, unlike many other tech companies, and integrated its software with the new generation of electronic health records. “There was about three or four years of some really serious, sort of business-level discipline and some strategic alliances,” says Barbash. Adds Morgan: “The first few years were just all about getting the technology right and kind of getting things going.” Then the company added new capabilities—such as scheduling, credit-card payments, health alerts and digital portals for patients to communicate with their doctors—and targeted physician partners, such as laboratories, pharmacies, payers and rehab facilities. With its expanded services, Updox officials now view their software as a customer relationship management platform—a Salesforce for healthcare, if you will—that addresses the ongoing push for care providers to think of themselves more as businesses. “This is a very, very big opportunity because we already have such a big network of people using Updox, and it’s right there where the industry is going, basically being able to help them achieve this transformation,” Morgan says. Even though he came up with the idea and owns a share of the business, Barbash wasn’t involved with Updox until he started using the software for his practice about 18 months ago. Now, he says he’s “probably one of the busiest users of Updox,” which he describes as a “universal inbox” or a “big catcher’s mitt” that allows him to work more efficiently, improve patient satisfaction and provide better care. “It’s pretty dramatic,” Barbash says. “I probably take on tasks that other people don’t. Most people don’t bother trying to get follow-up from families, because if they do it any way other than the way I do it, it would take them so much time and energy, and they would feel like they’re putting themselves at risk.” He predicts people may use Updox as a verb some day, like they do with Google or FedEx today. “I think [Updox] should be a household word within a couple of years, if this is done properly,” he says.
Aaron Boster Director, OhioHealth Multiple Sclerosis Center
Practitioner of the Year Dr. Aaron Boster’s career path became fated when he was 12. He watched his mother and grandmother cry in frustration when they couldn’t get his uncle’s doctor on the phone to talk about a
problem he was having due to his multiple sclerosis. “I told my mother I would learn to do it better that day,” Boster says. “I didn’t know what I was telling her, I didn’t know I’d be in school for 27 grades or that I’d be bald when I was done training. What I knew is that no family in central Ohio should be made to feel like that.” After schooling, Boster wound up working in a very theoretical setting— one that wasn’t quite scratching his decades-long itch to help people in more practical ways. He discovered that an “ivory tower academic environment” wasn’t the way he could best be successful. When he is talking
Finalists Healthcare Trailblazer Award 2018 L. Mark Dean CEO, Ohio Comprehensive Imaging Technologies While some doctors in Dr. L. Mark Dean’s position may be thinking about retirement, he is thinking about how to provide radiology services. Ohio Comprehensive Imaging Technologies is the company he founded to do it. OCIT offers imaging and pain care in an environment small enough to
Peter Lafferty Radiologist, Riverside Radiology and Interventional Associates Besides being a doctor, Peter Lafferty is a problemsolver. During his 32-year tenure at Riverside Radiology and Interventional Associates, Lafferty has provided guidance for developing tools to make the job more efficient, lower costs and improve healthcare quality, primar-
provide focused services. One focus of Dean’s is coming to the aid of those addicted to opioids and experiencing chronic pain. Another efforts is medical missions work. He has provided medical care to Honduran villages and also to veterans at the Chalmers P. Wylie Veterans Affairs Medical Center, sometimes at great disadvantage to himself. While giving care at the medical center, OCIT was
between contracts and overloaded with cases. Now, the center is able to provide near real-time care.
ily through a focus on the disclosure of imaging data. These tools include Clinical Decision Support, which allows referring physicians to consult with RRIA radiologists in real time, Lucid Peer Review, which provides radiologists with peer-reviewed studies while the patient is present, and RadAssist, which offers studies for physicians to read that are within their areas of expertise. Lafferty’s advances
are in an effort to make radiology imaging crossinstitutional and shape the healthcare industry into one that is patient-driven.
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about why he loves his current role, it’s easy to see that he’s meant to be near patients. One of his patients, Susan Saxbe, has been affected not only by Boster’s medical decisions regarding her primary progressive MS, but also by his bedside manner. “He has a special way of making me feel like I am the only one in his universe. … I leave every appointment feeling hopeful,” she says. “And in my opinion, the name Aaron Boster is synonymous with hope.” “I have a unique privilege and honor of hopscotching through the intimate lives of a couple thousand families,” Boster says. “I get to attend proverbially—or sometimes physically—high school graduation, wedding, first child, divorce, second wedding. … I am privileged to hear and learn things about people they won’t tell their priest and they won’t tell their spouse.” And the setting that provides him with this privilege is at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, in the MS Interdisciplinary Center that he helped build starting in December 2015. It was built to be holistic, providing for every need of its 3,000plus MS patients, even in such details as proximity to parking—an average of 200 steps from the free valet into the clinic. When a patient gets evaluated, he or she has the opportunity to meet with a neuro-ophthalmologist; physical, speech and occupational therapists; dietician and social worker, as determined through initial evaluation. Traditionally, a patient would have needed to schedule these specialist appointments separately. This approach meets the wildly varying needs of those with MS, since no journey with the disease looks the same. Included in Boster’s successes is the training of four clinical neuroimmunologists in fellowship, one of
“I hope that my legacy isn’t a plaque or a name or a picture; I want my legacy to be a living, breathing center. ”
which—his prodigy—works in North Carolina at the MS Center of Excellence. He says in the Jewish faith, there is a concept called a double mitzvah, where something good is done for someone and it cannot be repaid. That is how he likes to think of the work of the people he has mentored and trained. “Those are families I’ll never meet,” he says. “I get to help them indirectly from my trainees.” At his clinic, he introduced a fullyautomated intake system that allows patients to complete necessary tests and forms via iPad without supervision. He has also spoken all over the world, received countless awards, and most importantly, has helped individual patients and families reach countless goals. One such example is of an MS patient who is also a physician. Boster says before treatment, people would ac-
cuse her of being drunk on days when she was especially lacking muscle control, walking up and down hallways slowly, holding onto side rails. “When I asked her, ‘What’s the most exciting part about this for you?’ … She said, ‘When I was diagnosed with MS, I had to throw away my high-heeled shoes. I couldn’t wear them anymore, and it hurt.’ She now wears two-inch heels,” Boster says, with tears in his eyes. “That’s really cool. I can tell 25 other stories that are similar, but the point is that I get to celebrate with them.” As for his legacy, he doesn’t care so much about being remembered as he cares about his life’s work continuing. “I hope that my legacy isn’t a plaque or a name or picture; I want my legacy to be a living, breathing center of excellence where people know they’ll get the best care in the United States.”
John Edgar
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John Edgar Executive Director, Community Development for All People
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Pathway to Population Health The Rev. John Edgar didn’t expect to become the affordable housing mastermind of the South Side of Columbus. In the mid 2000s, the Methodist minister left an upper-management job overseeing 70 churches in Franklin, Pickaway and Fayette counties to return to his first love of urban ministry. He moved to Merion Village to oversee a new congregation, the Church for All People,
CONGRATULATIONS
SPENCE FISHER Executive Vice President The Memorial Health team congratulates our Executive Vice President, Spence Fisher, on being selected as an Executive of the Year Finalist for the 2018 Healthcare Achievement Awards. We join in honoring Spence’s leadership, business, and civic contributions to Memorial and to our region.
MEMORIAL HOSPITAL | MEMORIAL GABLES MEMORIAL MEDICAL GROUP | MEMORIAL HEALTH FOUNDATION
memorialohio.com An independent health system based in Marysville, Ohio.
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Finalists Pathway to Population Health Award 2018 Ohio State University Center for Public Health Practice Andrew Wapner, Director Since it was established in 2000, the Center for Public Health Practice has partnered with state and central Ohio public health officials to prepare practitioners for public health emergencies and educate and inform the population health workforce. A signature initiative has been the Summer Program in Population Health, the state’s largest academic public health education opportunity. The program offers courses in biostatistics, epidemiology, infant mortality, mental health
OhioHealth Wellness on Wheels Primary Care Krisanna Deppen, Medical Director OhioHealth developed Wellness on Wheels Primary Care to provide medical services to one of the city’s most economically challenged neighborhoods.
and addiction and food security, among other topics. For more than a decade, the program has helped local officials meet national public health competencies. The center has reached more than 4,000 population health practitioners
through online and inperson training. Over the past five years alone, the center has worked with partners in more than 15 counties in Ohio, developing strategies and activities that have the potential to affect 2.4 million Ohio residents.
In January 2017, the community partnership began serving the residents of the Hilltop. Supported by a $1 million grant from Huntington Bank, the 54-foot mobile medical unit—with oversight from medical director Krisanna Deppen—offers services from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesday and Thursdays.
The unit, parked at the Hilltop YMCA, includes two patient care rooms, where physicians see patients for, among other things, management of chronic health conditions, annual physicals and wellness examinations, immunizations and diagnosis and treatment of various medical concerns. In the first eight months of the program, the initiative handled 270 primarycare visits. Most patients have inadequately managed chronic illnesses. Caregivers have worked with patients to manage their conditions and overall health, while a community health worker assists patients with access to food, prescriptions and referrals to other community services.
built around the United Methodist Free Store on Parsons Avenue, and formed Community Development for All People, a nonprofit that has dramatically improved the quality of life in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. “It’s just God being gracious and the Spirit envisioning more than we did at the time,” he says. At the heart of his work is housing. The Free Store, the founding pillar of Edgar’s organization, offers a nonjudgmental place for anyone to pick up clothes, toys and other goods with no strings attached. The welcoming environment—based upon the theological concept of “radical hospitality”—gave Edgar and others a window into the struggling neighborhood’s needs. And it didn’t take long for him to realize that poor housing was the root of so many of the South Side’s struggles, including health-related ones. Health and housing go hand in hand. If you don’t have a safe and stable place to live, it’s hard to concentrate on treating your hypertension, depression or drug or alcohol addiction, for instance. Research also shows that reliable housing means that children are less likely to use the emergency room, be exposed to violence or miss school. What’s more, a lack of stable housing is one of the most significant contributors to “toxic stress,” chronic adversity that can overwhelm a child and lead to behavioral and cognitive problems, as well as physiological ones, such as asthma and infections. Edgar’s group, Community Development for All People, began to rehab houses on the South Side, at first unsuccessfully. “He started with one house, and as he will tell you, it went poorly,” says Dr. Kelly Kelleher, vice president for community health at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “It was shut down by the city because he didn’t know about permitting and approvals and all of those things.” But Edgar stuck with the effort and began to see some results, fixing several homes just east of Nationwide Children’s Hospital and selling them
“It’s just God being gracious and the Spirit envisioning more than we did. ”
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at affordable prices to improve home ownership in the neighborhood. Leaders at Nationwide Children’s Hospital took notice. “The housing in our area was vacant, blighted, boardedup, and he was bringing housing units back online,” says Angela Mingo, director of community relations for NCH. “We were very curious about how he was doing that and wanted to learn more from him on how we could then become involved in that same arena of affordable housing.” After realizing their missions were aligned, the two organizations became strong partners, with Edgar and his team serving as boots on the ground in the neighborhood. Since 2005, Community Development for All People has completed $60 million in affordable housing construction in the South Side and partnered with NCH on the repair or construction of 300 homes. “We certainly could not have made that level of investment on the South Side without a strong [community development] partner in Rev. Edgar,” Mingo says. Housing remains a major focus of Community Development for All People. It collaborated with NCH on an ambitious project called The Residences at Career Gateway, a $12 million, 58-unit residential complex that also provides workforce training for South Side residents. The nonprofit also struck a deal last year with CareSource, the managed care group, to cover rent for 10 pregnant homeless women, a pilot program that is expanding to 50 women this year. But Edgar’s efforts extend beyond housing to include hosting quarterly birthday parties for children who reach the age of 1, providing free or affordable bikes and offering health education, cooking and exercise opportunities through an initiative called HEAL (Healthy Eating and Living). In late February, a former Parsons Avenue drive-through liquor store was expected to open as the new home for The Fresh Market, another Community Development for All People program that provides fresh produce. Kelleher admires Edgar’s devotion to his neighborhood. “His passion isn’t about necessarily saving people,” Kelleher says. “It’s actually about allowing his community to thrive, allowing their own strengths to come out and allowing them to have some say at participating in their own outcomes.”
Peter Pema, MD Finalist, Lifetime Achievement
Peter Lafferty, MD Finalist, Practitioner of the Year
On behalf of Riverside Radiology & Interventional Associates’ physicians and staff, congratulations on your worthy recognitions as finalists in the 2018 Columbus CEO Healthcare Achievement Awards. The number of lives impacted by your work is immeasurable, but your humility and impact on the central Ohio region cannot be understated. Your leadership has taken us leaps and bounds from where we began, but we know your work is far from over—together, we can achieve even greater advancements on the horizon.
RiversideRad.com • World Class. Ohio Based. • (614) 340-7740 March 2018 l ColumbusCEO
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Reed Fraley, recently retired chief operating officer of Primary One Health, formerly known as Columbus Neighborhood Health Center. Fraley previously served as senior vice president of the Ohio Hospital Association and as CEO of the Ohio State University Health System.
Dr. Patricia Gabbe, a
Judges Healthcare Achievement Awards 2018 Columbus CEO is indebted to the nine healthcare leaders from diverse backgrounds who served as judges for our Healthcare Achievement Awards. Working in groups of three, the judges scored nominations based on specific criteria for each category. Accumulated results determine winners and finalists. With thanks for their invaluable contributions, we’re proud to partner with these judges:
pediatrician and professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University. She is also founder and director of Moms2B Ohio and won the Rising Above award, one of Columbus CEO’s first healthcare recognitions in 2013.
Bridget Gargan, executive director, Ohio Association of County Boards Serving People with Developmental Disabilities. She is a former vice president of government affairs for the Ohio Hospital Association.
CONGRATULATIONS DR. L. MARK DEAN Finalist for Practitioner of the Year, 2018 Healthcare Achievement Awards The team at Ohio Comprehensive Imaging Technologies, provides meaningful and innovative solutions for healthcare including Radiology, Pain Management, Interventional Radiology, and Healthcare consulting.
Ohio Comprehensive Imaging Technologies From left: L. Mark Dean, M.D., Shella Farooki, M.D., M.P.H, Donald W. McBride, M.D., Daniel Baker, M.D. Not pictured Gretchen G. Cordero, M.D.
1 Miranova Place #825 Columbus, Ohio 43215 (614) 981-2608
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Bill Hardy, president and CEO, Equitas Health, a primary care provider for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. He received the 2017 Healthcare Trailblazer award.
dr. David Sabgir, a cardiologist with Mount Carmel Clinical Cardiovascular Specialists St. Ann’s, founder and CEO of Walk with a Doc and 2016 Pathway to Population Health award winner.
Amy Rohling McGee,
president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, a nonprofit that provides healthcare analysis and information targeted for state policymakers. She previously was executive director of the Ohio Association of Free Clinics.
dr. John Johnson, president
and CEO of Access Ohio, a mental health provider with five locations in Columbus and Dayton. He was the Executive of the Year winner in 2017.
Richard Vincent, recently
Brent Mulgrew, retired
retired president and CEO of the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations. Vincent was previously president and CEO of Doctors Hospitals and was a finalist for the 2013 Lifetime Achievement award.
executive director of the Ohio State Medical Association. He was a 2016 Lifetime Achievement winner in our Healthcare Achievement Awards.
Saving, protecting and enhancing children's lives
Congratula tions, Nick Lashutka! We appreciate your leadership and are honored to work with you on behalf of
Ohio’s children’s hospitals to save, protect and enhance the lives of Ohio’s children. ~ Sarah Kincaid & Sarah Cansler, Ohio Children’s Hospital Association staff ~ Willa Ebersole, Pappas & Associates
~ Greg Browning & Melissa Snider, Capital Partners ~ Angela Krile, Krile Communications
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