American Healthcare Leader #22

The Person & The Profession

Pulling from her experience as a cancer patient, Christine Pabst strives to make the complex journey through healthcare smoother for AEP employees

ANTHEM IS PROUD TO PARTNER WITH Christine

Pabst

Christine embodies the way health care should be. She’s deeply invested in the experience of the people she serves, and she is committed to better outcomes through smarter benefits design.

Thank you, Christine, for your dedication to a better way of doing things.

Prioritize the People

Leaders who work in the best interest of their employees and their communities

P8

in this issue

On the Cover

The Issues

After twenty-five years working in trademark law, Larry Rickles discusses the challenges and nuances of selecting and securing the perfect brand name 60

Michael Williamson carries forth Pacific Dental Services’ values-based approach to promote compliant, ethical dentistry practices 66

As CHRO of one of the largest global ambulance companies, Lisa Jacoba ensures that first responders and support employees are treated with the utmost respect ◀ 70

The Business

As GSK strives to find solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brennan Torregrossa supports the mission through unwavering leadership ▶ 88

At AmerisourceBergen, Jeannine Meo Altrogge uses her work in finance as a tool to plan for a healthier future 96

Michael Parris created a data hub at Texas Health Resources to keep track of consumer journeys and provide better courses for healing 108

Christine Pabst was photographed by Jeremy Kramer, a multimedia artist based in Cincinnati, Ohio. To view more of his work, visit jeremykramerphoto.com.

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From the Editor

I love cooking for a lot of reasons: the experimentation of ingredients, the satisfaction of acing a new dish, and (obviously) the end result. When I was a child, I would stand by my mother in the kitchen and help her make our family’s favorite meals; and now I always turn to her when I want a nostalgic taste. But as an adult, my cooking has become more adventurous, requiring me to turn to my favorite chefs like Samin Nosrat and David Chang for advice and guidance.

One of the most important skills I’ve learned from them is how to master the art of improvisation. Forget the recipe. Don’t have a pie tin? Make a galette. Allergic to citrus? Use light vinegars to add acid to your dishes. Out of peanut butter? Try tahini. The special thing about this improvisation is that no matter who the cook is, the food can be catered to them—and still taste amazing.

In many ways, being a leader in healthcare requires this same sort of flexibility. As these leaders work behind the scenes to bring better care to their organizations and beyond, the ability to create options for anyone, in any circumstance, enhances their ability to promote and sustain the end goal: provide for the people.

Prefer not to leave your house to visit the doctor? Book a telehealth appointment like the ones available through Highmark (p.38). Need help paying bills? Look into patient payment plans offered by places like UNC Health Care (p.18). Wondering how your benefits options fit your needs? Browse plans for full-time and part-time employees at Krispy Kreme (p.46).

Efforts like these are made with people in mind, not the bottom line. The executives found within these pages pivot their strategies to make the people they impact feel noticed and nurtured. That might mean something as simple as improving paperwork processes for physicians, or a massive undertaking like creating an employee food bank to combat food insecurity during a pandemic.

These moments of creativity, adaptability, and personability distinguish these leaders as changemakers, willing to work outside the traditional boundaries of healthcare. And, undoubtedly, like in cooking, mastering the art of improvisation in this industry culminates in a unique, incredibly satisfying result.

KC Esper Managing Editor

Build the Plan Around the People

Seven leaders strategize solutions that put their employees and communities at the center of their business priorities

Christine Pabst

American Electric Power

Mark Miller

UNC Health Care

Kamron Lachney

AdventHealth

Melissa “Britt” Sinha

New York-Presbyterian Hospital

Olga Ziegler

Highmark Inc.

Will Foster

Krispy Kreme

Frank Rainer

Memorial Healthcare System

On Both Sides

At American Electric Power, Christine Pabst uses lessons learned from her own cancer treatment to remove barriers to care, promote prevention, and improve outcomes

By Zach Baliva

Portraits

by Jeremy Kramer

of Care

Christine Pabst was thriving as Cameron Mitchell Restaurants’ senior benefits manager. Just a few years after joining the fine dining company, she was assuming responsibility for workers compensation, leave administration, and other key HR issues. While Pabst has always placed an emphasis on the individual employee, something happened in 2013 that would change how she views employee benefits forever: she was diagnosed with cancer.

Suddenly, Pabst found herself at the center of a system she spent her professional life administering. A persistent cough sent her to a primary care physician who ordered a chest X-ray. That led to a CT scan, several biopsies, and a lymph node removal. Doctors told Pabst she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She made an appointment with an oncologist and was shocked at what she found.

Pabst, who was just thirty-three at the time, expected wise counsel and comforting words. Instead, she encountered a rigid physician who spent less than ten minutes speaking to her. When she first tried to get a new oncologist to provide a second opinion, her healthcare provider told her there was a six-week wait time.

As a benefits manager, Pabst often fielded calls from employees who needed to know how to find a physician or access care, and she would advise them to call their insurance provider or use an online portal. Yet with stage IV cancer, she didn’t have time to follow standard procedures. Instead, Pabst relied upon her network of friends and family to help her get an appointment with a well-known oncologist at the James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

Seventeen blood vials and five hours later, she had a different diagnosis: stage IV Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Armed with a New Perspective

With a new oncologist and a new treatment plan, Pabst started six rounds of chemo taken every three weeks for six months. Today, Pabst is remarkably healthy. While she’s been cancer free for almost seven years, the trying ordeal marked a turning point in her career. “My experience as a cancer patient showed me firsthand how frustrating it can be to navigate the world of employee benefits and gave me a renewed passion for making the user experience better,” she says.

With cancer treatment firmly behind her, Pabst wanted a fresh start. She wanted a new role—one that would take her from daily administration to benefits strategy, design, and implementation. In 2015, she joined American Electric Power (AEP) to help manage the medical plan that provides care to the utility’s eighteen thousand employees and seventeen thousand retirees.

Pabst immediately faced a major challenge as AEP transitioned all insured members to high deductible health plans. Soon after her start date, she was

“I was originally misdiagnosed, and I know how important a second opinion can be in confirming a diagnosis or getting to a correct treatment plan. I wanted to remove the obstacles between our employees and that second opinion.”

WHAT DOES PEOPLECENTRIC LEADERSHIP MEAN TO YOU?

“To me, people-centric leadership in the context of working with my team means valuing each person’s contribution. Having diverse perspectives and styles within a team, encouraging dialogue that allows for us to challenge one another, and having open and honest communication is integral to our success and how we serve the employees at AEP.

“This philosophy extends to the work that we do for the employees and retirees of AEP as we craft strategy and implement our benefit programs. We are looking for how the information or change will resonate with different audiences be it our active employees, retirees, geographic differences, field or office employees, etc. Understanding that there is never a ‘one-size-fits-all’ when it comes to benefits design and delivery is top of mind for me and we consistently look for ways to adapt and change over time to better tailor our programs and delivery to account for that.”

—Christine Pabst

on the road delivering in-person benefits meetings. Eighteen months later, she assumed prescription drug benefits management, and at the end of 2017 she helped transition roughly thirteen thousand of AEP’s Medicare eligible retirees and their dependents to custom group Medicare advantage plans. This transition included adding clinical oversight and guidance for individuals at a time when they need it most, something traditional Medicare does not provide.

In 2019, Pabst became AEP’s director of employee benefits. Just four years after making a career move to pursue a strategic role, Pabst had the opportunity to lead seven benefits consultants and direct AEP’s health and welfare benefits program.

In these positions, Pabst has been able to leverage her experience as a patient to create a better employee experience for her colleagues. In 2018, AEP implemented a second opinion service that gives employees the chance to have a virtual conversation with an additional physician at no cost. “I was originally misdiagnosed, and I know how important a second opinion can be in confirming a diagnosis or getting to a correct treatment plan,” Pabst says. “I wanted to remove the obstacles between our employees and that second opinion.”

AEP’s HR team can design new programs packed with special features, but benefits are only effective when employees understand, remember, and use them. That’s why Pabst is working to increase engagement. “People who receive a shocking diagnosis or experience a profound medical event don’t always remember a benefits brochure their company mailed to their house in the previous six months,” Pabst says. “We want to do all we can to streamline our product offerings, so our employees use our benefits when they need them most.”

Christine Pabst Director of Employee Benefits

American Electric Power

Pabst’s affinity toward her work and role as a change agent doesn’t go unnoticed by her peers. “Christine’s deep understanding of the role of healthcare and health insurance in people’s lives is the foundation of her thoughtful, caring approach to benefits management,” says Brad Kirkpatrick, chief client officer for Anthem national accounts. “She is leading changes at AEP that are going to benefit the company and its employees.”

Plans for Real Life

In the past year, Pabst has worked with vendors to integrate into the healthcare experience. AEP employees working in a disability center advise users on available services, and she and her team created a benefits website that goes beyond a typical intranet—details are available externally so spouses and

insured family members can access information at their convenience. Because preventative care is especially important to good outcomes, AEP made plan changes to cover more procedures like colonoscopies and mammograms with no participant cost share. But Pabst wasn’t content to provide basic screenings—she took things one step further by changing claims processing procedures to give employees increased coverage regardless of their health history.

“A cancer diagnosis should not come with a scarlet letter that marks you for life. Someone that has survived cancer shouldn’t have future screenings billed at a much higher rate, and at AEP, they won’t,” she explains.

These ideas and strategies fit well at AEP because the organization as a whole is committed to cancer prevention. The

“A cancer diagnosis should not come with a scarlet letter that marks you for life. Someone that has survived cancer shouldn’t have future screenings billed at a much higher rate, and at AEP, they won’t.”

American Electric Power Foundation partners with the American Cancer Society to fund and implement projects that increase the number of patents screened. They also seek to uncover and remove community barriers to treatment and care. AEP’s plans cover employees in rural areas, and Pabst is passionate about making sure those individuals have access to quality doctors and care. The company has partnered with Castlight, a healthcare transparency tool that offers location-based ratings and reviews for providers and help employees better prepare for out of pocket costs associated with their high deductible health plans.

As director of employee benefits, Pabst has to evaluate new therapies and treatments to determine what AEP’s plan will cover. With costs rising above $300 million per year, it may be tempting to make each decision based purely on cost, but Pabst refuses that inclination.

An innovative drug saved her own life and revolutionized outcomes for patients with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That fact changes her decision-making process. “I get excited when I see new therapies we can cover in our benefits plan,” she says, “because I picture a face. And I see the chance to help save a life.” AHL

Christine Pabst and American Electric Power are known for their spirit of innovation and serving their communities. Here at Pharmaceutical Strategies Group, we love working with Christine and the AEP team because their focus on innovation and service mirrors PSG’s legacy of relentless advocacy for those we serve. Christine is a fantastic partner and forward-thinking HR leader.

A Heart

By Billy Yost

A near-death experience inspired Mark Miller to transition into healthcare. Now, he’s supporting the people at the forefront of care.

You could say Mark Miller’s heart is in healthcare. But it’s a generality that deserves a little explanation. Fresh out of undergrad, the new accountant had signed on with Arthur Andersen, ready to start his career. The twenty-three-year-old was at new-hire school in St. Charles, Illinois, when he felt an awful pain in his chest. He ended up in the emergency room with what he was told were the early signs of pneumonia. Miller flew back home with the aid of oxygen and visited a family primary care physician. It wasn’t exactly pneumonia.

The week of speaking with Miller marked the twenty-eighth anniversary of his nearly dying. “Nurses were trying to get a pulse and my blood pressure in my extremities, and they couldn’t get anything,” Miller remembers. “It turns out I had two liters of fluid buildup in my pericardium, the sack around your heart, and it was compressing down on the organ. They say if I had gone to sleep that night, I probably wouldn’t have woken up.” Miller wound up with a nine-inch needle in his chest draining fluid, and one of the more dramatic gateways to healthcare financial expertise one could imagine.

Now CFO and treasurer for UNC Health Care, Miller says his early brush with death helped provide a clearer direction for where he wanted to spend his time professionally. “When you go through something like that and you’re left sitting around just hearing your heartbeat, you wonder, why am I still here? How do I make sense of this and continue on?”

Back at work, Miller was kept close to home, and in doing so, became acquainted with Arthur Andersen’s small healthcare practice. “Back then the largest clients in our Charlotte office were Mission Hospital out of Asheville and Mercy Hospital in Charlotte,” Miller remembers. “After the initial healthcare first-year staff person transferred to another office, I went to our scheduling person and said I would be happy to step in and take on those healthcare jobs.”

“Selfishly, I thought that in working with those clients, I’d be close to a hospital if anything else happened to me,” he adds, laughing.

Fast-forward nearly thirty years, and the healthcare expert has amassed financial expertise for the largest and most prestigious providers in North Carolina: first with Duke University Health System and Novant Health. Miller joined UNC Health Care in 2016 first as senior vice president for finance and later promoted to his current CFO role.

The CFO has a knack for identifying and developing talent, but his tendency to help bring along future leaders isn’t so much a company mandate, but a personal one. “If these people coming up have their next opportunity within our system, that’s great. But if that happens to be outside because we don’t have what they’re ready to take on, then so be it. Just as long as everybody doesn’t do it on the same day,” he jokes.

Miller says one of his proudest accomplishments is the CFOs he’s helped develop for other organizations, and those who have left for a time to develop their skill set and come back as even higher performers.

It’s not just talent development that has been impacted by Miller’s work at UNC Health Care. The

“When you go through something like that and you’re left sitting around just hearing your heartbeat, you wonder, why am I still here? How do I make sense of this and continue on?”

WHAT DOES PEOPLECENTRIC LEADERSHIP MEAN TO YOU?

“My objective is always to recruit and retain people who are brighter and smarter than me. Some leaders want to keep a safe distance between themselves and the folks around them, and that’s just not something I support. If I ever leave an organization, I want their hardest decision to be, ‘Which one of these great and highly qualified people that have been developed here could be picked as a replacement?’ It feels good as a leader to know that we’ve helped develop people to do great things, whether that’s here or elsewhere. Surround yourself with people that you can trust and do good work. It’s a win-win for everybody.” —Mark Miller

finance team helped right the ship at the UNC Health Care owned High Point Regional Medical Center before a successful win-win transaction that saw the hospital handed off to Wake Forest Baptist in 2018. “It was initially a financial challenge and, for so many reasons, this made sense for everyone involved,” he says. “It was good for Wake Forest, good for UNC, and it was good for the community.”

The finance team was able to go to the bond market both in November of 2019 and January of 2020 to borrow over $400 million for a string of high-profile projects including a surgical tower, a cancer center, and a brandnew hospital.

While these new facilities will help enhance quality of care, Miller and his team have worked to win a coinciding battle: enabling patients to afford that care. A 2019 study showed that one in four consumers skipped medical care due to its cost. And with the coronavirus pandemic displacing people from their jobs—and, subsequently, their insurance—UNC found “scalable, non-discriminatory, cost-effective” solutions to provide financial assistance to its consumers.

Since September 2019, UNC has partnered with AccessOne to expand affordability options across patient payment plans.

“Our mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of North Carolinians. This extends beyond high-quality care and into consumer satisfaction and financial flexibility,” Miller explains. “We’ve expanded our clinical lifeline through our generous financial assistance program and our flexible payment program for patients with high deductible insurance plans. We also continue to grow our estimation services program, enabling patients to have a better perspective of their out of pocket costs and reducing the risk of an unexpected medical bill.”

Like its patients, COVID-19 has proven a challenge for UNC Health Care, like all health organizations— but, there is a difference. Despite the multi-hundreds of millions of dollars lost by locking organizations down and cancelling elective surgeries, UNC has managed to keep its workforce on the clock.

“Somebody did ask me that it seemed like many other organizations were letting people go, so why weren’t we,” Miller says. “I said, ‘Because we’re not them. We’re UNC.’ The money that we have in the bank, we got there because of the efforts of all of our coworkers. We are here for them when they need it most, and we were very deliberate from the beginning that protecting our team financially, with continued employment, and physically, with needed PPE and processes, were of high priority.” AHL

BDO congratulates Mark Miller, chief financial officer of UNC Health Care, on his accomplishments and well-deserved professional recognition. As a long-standing strategic partner of UNC Health Care, we share Mark’s passion for top quality in patient care, operational resilience, and one seamless approach towards excellence in financial reporting to the market.

AccessOne is proud to partner with UNC Healthcare

AccessOne earned a #1 ranking and was awarded Category Leader for Patient Financing in the 2020 Best in KLAS Report.

The AccessOne Di erence:

• Most financing and funding options in the industry

• 100% of patients accepted into our program

• Superior patient experience and satisfaction To learn more, visit

“We were very deliberate from the beginning that protecting our team financially, with continued employment, and physically, with needed PPE and processes, were of high priority.”

Winning the Claim Game

Kamron Lachney revamped AdventHealth’s approach to inpatient claims denials and ER documentation, which revised and recouped $22 million

By Peter Fabris

A middle-aged man enters an AdventHealth hospital emergency room complaining of shortness of breath, a productive cough, and intermittent fevers. The physician in charge determines that the man has asthma exacerbation and acute bronchitis. The patient is admitted as an inpatient, and after an uneventful stay of two days, improves enough to be sent home.

From a medical perspective, it was a successful outcome. But, that’s not where the story ended for the hospital. After granting initial approval for the inpatient admittance, an insurance company’s contractor conducted a “short stay” audit on the case. The audit found that medical record documents did not indicate that the patient required inpatient care or that outpatient care would have been appropriate. The claim was denied, and the hospital made an appeal for payment to the insurer.

It’s a familiar scenario to healthcare institutions that are faced with highly complex reimbursement rules to get paid for their services. AdventHealth discovered that observation or inpatient decisions led to millions of dollars of insurance payment denials each year. Often, these were the result of a mismatch of patient symptoms and overall health status in medical records with the criteria payors used to support inpatient admission.

Kamron Lachney, regional vice president of revenue cycle operations for AdventHealth West Florida Division, further invested and continued a very carefully orchestrated plan to appropriately place patients in the correct status while decreasing payor payment denials across the division. In 2019, the region corrected, appealed, and overturned approximately $18 million in claims that were initially denied.

Lachney, in partnership with Lynn Leoce, corporate executive director over utilizations management (UM), achieved impressive results by consolidating the patient review process into a centralized unit function under revenue cycle operations (RCO) and by implementing an XSOLIS artificial intelligence tool that assists physicians in determining whether a patient is best served by inpatient admission or short-term observation. The XSOLIS AI tool prompts caregivers to prioritize at-risk claims based on data values reflecting either patient stability or an abnormal state. As a result, it provides guidance for the clinical staff to appropriately provide the patients the proper status and appropriate quality care.

“Few people in healthcare truly envision the operational impact of AI. Kamron has made that impact happen for AdventHealth,” says Joan Butters, CEO and cofounder of XSOLIS. “Kamron has shown himself as a true innovator and the results speak for themselves.”

Prior to the centralized UM initiative, each hospital or physician’s practice handled these appeals individually. The revamped approach created a Centralized Utilization Review Team that manages all pre-bill denials. Today, medical decision-makers can contact physician advisors on the review team via a dedicated extension whenever they encounter denials. Well-versed in the statusing of admissions and documentation improvement initiatives to ameliorate claim outcomes, physician advisors help physicians identify additional information about a case to boost the chances of a successful appeal.

“These interactions help educate the clinicians on documentation and best practices, again providing the best care for our patients.”

WHAT DOES PEOPLECENTRIC LEADERSHIP MEAN TO YOU?

“For me, it begins with AdventHealth’s mission statement: extending the healing ministry of Christ. It defines our company’s culture toward our patients, our employees and their families, and our community. I believe in people development with compassion, understanding, and a positive attitude through focused attention. Good leaders provide access to the right tools to establish people success; great leaders provide the right tools but also mentorship, partnership, and personal guidance for success.” —Kamron

Lachney

One physician advisor is assigned to deal with each and all payors, providing a single point of contact between AdventHealth West Florida Division and the payor. “Advisors build relationships with major payors,” Lachney says. This allows AdventHealth to better understand the payor’s principles regarding claim denials, and the payor to better understand AdventHealth’s strategy toward patient status and what is deemed medically necessary regarding the patients’ clinical indicators.

“We encourage challenging denials when it’s right for our patients,” Lachney says. With one point of contact, the back-and-forth interactions with payors are simplified. Now, there is no need for multiple calls or emails to track down the right person to address specific case reviews at the facility. These case studies are leveraged to provide further education for leadership and clinical staff. Both the AdventHealth West Florida Division RCO physician advisor and the payor physician peer continually develop a rapport and peer-to-peer understanding while reviewing patient cases.

This arrangement has another advantage. The centralized approach enables standardization on claims documents, increasing accuracy across the organization—which in turn also reduces denials. Previously, having each practitioner address their own denials yielded more inconsistent claim outcomes. “You could have one physician documenting a case completely differently from another,” Lachney says. “The payor looks at the records of pretty much the exact same case, and because the notes are different, one may get paid and the other denied.”

The regular contact between AdventHealth’s physician advisors and each payor also allows AdventHealth

Kamron Lachney Regional VP of Revenue Cycle Operations AdventHealth West Florida Division

to learn how to better approach tailored stances conflicting opinions document cases, Lachney adds. That knowledge, accumulated by the Centralized Utilization Review Team, then benefits the entire organization.

One of the salient features of the AI tool is a series of prompts based on automated algorithmic logic of trending patient data points. The tool assists in calculating and weighing specifics in patients’ medical history given their current conditions. It creates guidance and provides a numeric score that indicates whether the documentation is supportive of an inpatient stay or otherwise.

The tool has been very beneficial and continues to be enhanced. “There are still gray areas,” Lachney says. “That’s when the physician can call a dedicated extension and speak with UM subject matter experts or our physician advisor team. These interactions help educate the clinicians on documentation and best practices, again providing the best care for our patients.”

The AI system is simply a tool to help clinicians think “whole care,” using the providers’ expertise to determine status—observation or inpatient. It’s not the sole determinant. “It’s ultimately up to the physician,” Lachney emphasizes.

Eliminating all inpatient claims denials is not a realistic goal, Lachney acknowledges. There will be cases when a physician feels strongly that an inpatient stay is necessary, and the payor will simply not agree. AdventHealth continues to ensure that the best care for the patient is provided regardless. “It’s about looking at these encounters and putting effort toward what is appropriate for our patients,” Lachney says.

The combination of the Centralized Utilization Review Team, the RCO Physician Advisor Team, and the AI tool will continue to enhance payment turnaround time and reduce medically necessary denials. The result is an organization with improved financial health that maintains a high quality of care. AHL

“It’s about looking at these encounters and putting effort toward what is appropriate for our patients.”

Our partner AdventHealth sees a new path forward, using AI to better serve their patients and empower their staff.

Emotional Well-Being When

Melissa “Britt” Sinha brings New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s 47,000 employees best-in-class well-being opportunities—even in a crisis

By Billy Yost

It Matters Most

ew York-Presbyterian Hospital (NYP), an organization encompassing over forty-seven thousand employees, seems like one far too large to be on the frontlines of employee well-being efforts, especially given the radical shift so many healthcare institutions have undergone in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Employee well-being” most often brings to mind tech giants and other bastions of the Silicon Valley, not healthcare systems on the frontline of a massive pandemic response. But Corporate Director of Benefits, Health, and Well-Being Melissa “Britt” Sinha says it’s precisely because of this battle that NYP has rolled out increasingly enhanced and targeted wellness options for its workers: this is the time that they need it most.

A More Compassionate Idea of Health

A seven-year veteran of NYP, Sinha first came to the organization in an effort to develop a well-being program that was more than the “in name only” of far too many providers. “So many places will say they have a well-being program because they have yoga and some free food,” Sinha says frankly. “One of the first things I did when I came here was help people understand that NYP was really focusing on them as a whole person, to

recognize that they can’t take care of their patients to the best of their ability unless they are first taking care of themselves.”

Sinha says she has a leg up that she wishes more in her space received. “Everything I am able to do is because our executive leadership believes that this is essential for our employees,” the director says. “I would go to so many conferences that would spend all of their time talking about making the business case for your well-being program. I didn’t need a business case because our leadership understands and truly believes that it’s the right thing to do.”

NYPHealthy, the employee well-being program, encompasses so many facets of the lives of the organization’s employees that it’s difficult to list, but broad strokes include individualized and strategic health and well-being programs across ten different hospitals, on-site well-being coaches with whom employees can discuss goals they want to work toward, as well as on-site and online yoga classes, step challenges to encourage movement, and an increasingly important buildout of what the organization calls “emotional well-being.”

“We call it ‘emotional well-being’ because we didn’t want our employees to get nervous or turned off when we start talking about ‘mental health,’” Sinha explains.

“One of the first things I did when I came here was help people understand that NYP was really focusing on them as a whole person, to recognize that they can’t take care of their patients to the best of their ability, unless they are first taking care of themselves.”

WHAT DOES PEOPLECENTRIC LEADERSHIP MEAN TO YOU?

“People-centric leadership is creating a culture that acknowledges, appreciates, and supports employees in a holistic way. It is the understanding that your organization is only as good as the people that represent it. They are your most important asset and need to be nourished and developed. Without engaged, fulfilled employees, you will not have a sustainable culture.”

—Melissa “Britt” Sinha

“We wanted to get them engaged and interested. So, we started gradually with seminars and webinars, providing platforms where people can go and read articles and get them in the right space to pursue a wider idea of health.”

Now More Than Ever

It would make sense that the COVID-19 pandemic would have put all of these programs in a state of flux, but at NYP, the result was exactly the opposite. “Everything has escalated and fast-forwarded so much because of COVID-19,” Sinha says. “Our employees have gone through trauma. A lot of PTSD has occurred based on what our employees have witnessed and endured. Our goal has been to acknowledge that this has happened and to validate our employees’ feelings about it. How can we help them talk about it, address it, and work through it?”

Sinha says the wider fight against racial injustice has also meant more people are coming to work with significant emotional burdens that the organization is dedicated to helping its employees work through. NYP has partnered with Cornell and Columbia medical schools to work on expanding the emotional well-being components of its programs.

In response to the economic hardship COVID-19 was placing on employees, a relief fund was created for employees to receive up to $5,000. But Sinha says through the grant applications, they found a resoundingly high demand for food, so NYP looked to see how else it could help its employees through the difficult time. “Our CEO said we needed to figure out a food bank to help any employees currently struggling with food insecurities,” Sinha says. So, the team got to work.

What was essential from Sinha’s perspective was for employees to retain their dignity and in no way feel embarrassed for seeking assistance amid such difficult

times. “If you just set up a food bank in the cafeteria, that’s not fully respecting your employees,” the director says. “We wanted to protect people’s confidentiality.” Furthermore, with public transit limited (if at all), how were employees going to safely get that food home?

“We worked with our outside vendor to create a confidential food bank,” Sinha explains. “Employees could apply online and would receive a home delivery of basic food staples once a week for a month.” At Sinha’s time of speaking, NYP has elected to extend the program beyond what was originally forecasted.

“This has been so gratifying, but it is also so difficult to see how many people in our own organization are experiencing food insecurity,” Sinha says. “So many people are feeding more relatives than they are used to, have family or partners who have lost jobs, or are otherwise struggling right now, and we feel it’s our duty to take care of our employees.”

She may be doing more at one time than she thought she would have time to tackle, but Sinha looks at it much differently. “I’m not on the front line,” the director says. “I’m not in the emergency room or the ICU. I’m not covered in PPE and seeing what our employees are seeing every day. I’m just grateful and humbled to be able to help them do their jobs, and to work for an organization that truly cares about its employees.” AHL

Restaurant Associates: A Culture of Care

Innovators in Culinary, Hospitality and Well-Being for over 60 years specializing in Restaurant Casual and Fine Dining, Retail Dining, Workplace Dining and Office Catering, Event Catering, Grab & Go and Employee Reward Initiative Boxed Meal Programs.

Melissa “Britt” Sinha Corporate Director of Benefits, Health & Well-Being New York-Presbyterian Hospital

Enhancing Care Automatically

By Stephanie Zeilenga

Olga Ziegler grew up in Moscow, Russia, during a time when the quality of healthcare was subpar and preventive healthcare was nonexistent. She witnessed family members delay care, which resulted in late diagnoses and limited treatment options. “The good news is healthcare has improved in Russia, but my past experiences continue to motivate me to be part of something even better,” she says.

Now vice president of revenue program management at Pittsburghbased Highmark Inc., one of America’s leading health insurance organizations and an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Ziegler is leading the charge to close the gap between providers and health plans at point of care using the latest technology. She oversees Highmark’s risk adjustment operations and revenue reimbursements for the company’s approximately 240,000 Medicare Advantage members and 160,000 ACA individual and small group members (as of January 2020).

“The ultimate goal for my team is to ensure Highmark receives complete and accurate reimbursements from the government for our enrolled beneficiaries—critical to ensuring our beneficiaries have access to high-quality, affordable care and products,” Ziegler says.

Ziegler is also focused on supporting Highmark’s members by advancing point

of care solutions through automation and improving access to comprehensive care.

“If we can effectively partner with providers toward this objective, everyone wins,” she says. “But changing processes and behaviors takes time and effort, and understanding the technology landscape and the views held by each generation are important factors in effecting change.”

For example, a decade ago, the majority of medical records were on paper; now, 90 percent or more are electronic. Ziegler says widespread adoption required focused and collaborative effort and a behavior change by those in both the public and private sectors. “The adoption of EMR laid the foundation for future digital transformation,” she notes. “Automation and point of care solutions have quickly provided value through increased productivity and quality, eliminating unnecessary administrative burdens, which ultimately reduces healthcare costs.”

In 2017, Ziegler played a central role in the pilot of Highmark’s first point of care risk adjustment EHR solution to eliminate paper communication. She assisted Allegheny Health Network, a Highmark Health company, through a risk adjustment transformation journey that resulted in the implementation of new technology that has improved provider satisfaction, documentation quality, and accuracy of risk adjustment data.

Olga Ziegler

VP of Revenue Program Management Highmark Inc.

WHAT DOES PEOPLECENTRIC LEADERSHIP MEAN TO YOU?

“When I think about peoplecentric leadership, I immediately think of a culture of engaged people who have been inspired to be their best. This type of culture rarely occurs organically and often requires a hands-on leader who has passion, but who can also lead with empathy. As leaders, I believe it is our responsibility to cultivate a people-centric culture comprised of a safe and trusting environment, knowledge of what motivates your people, and leadership who guide with inspiration, passion, and empathy.” —Olga

Ziegler

Sam Reynolds, medical director for quality for AHN’s clinically integrated network, was involved with the implementation of this new risk accuracy solution. “Olga was instrumental in advocating for and advancing the embedded EHR solution,” he says. “The adoption of this new technology platform has eliminated a complicated, retrospective paper process and replaced it with a streamlined method to address chronic medical conditions at the point of care. It reduces the documentation burden for our clinicians and actually saves them time.”

Ziegler says her team had strong support within Highmark and Allegheny Health Network—a necessity to pull off any transformational journey within healthcare. “We are facing numerous challenges, having to solve for compliance, privacy, and IT obstacles,” she explains. “However, irrespective of challenges, when payor and provider partners are committed to working together on improving healthcare delivery, we have proven to be successful. Success looks like a win-win outcome for our providers, members, and Highmark.”

Highmark’s investments in innovation are central to moving healthcare forward, improving clinical insights and outcomes while reducing costs, Ziegler says. “In the last four years, we have implemented various robotics process automation tools (RPA), which complete routine tasks that previously required administrative support,” she says. “These tools deliver consistent outcomes in about half the time, which reduces provider administrative burden and allows us to free up dollars and invest elsewhere. More importantly, this innovation is allowing providers to spend more time with their patients.”

COVID-19, of course, has brought new challenges to Ziegler, who has been tasked with understanding the implications of the pandemic while simultaneously ensuring members have access to care. When the pandemic hit, her team saw about a 30 percent decrease in doctor visits as members

“When payor and provider partners are committed to working together on improving healthcare delivery, we have proven to be successful. Success looks like a win-win outcome for our providers, members, and Highmark.”

Expertise Spotlight

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Arcadia and Highmark share a commitment to finding innovative ways for payers and providers to collaborate and find success in value-based contracts. Highmark wanted to enable multiple modalities to share actionable, real-time information with care teams, recognizing that each provider group may do things a bit differently.

Highmark implemented our Assess and Desktop notification applications across its provider community.

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Learn more at arcadia.io

began deferring care to avoid the risk of contracting COVID. “It was clear to us that care needed to be delivered in a new way to accommodate those at high risk or who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes,” Ziegler says.

Telehealth was the solution. “With government support and a concerted effort to raise awareness across providers and members, we have been able to ramp up telehealth as a new visit modality,” Ziegler says. To ensure widespread access, Ziegler is piloting a program to

lend devices to members who do not have the technology necessary to connect with healthcare providers remotely or do not know how to use the technology. Seniors, especially, need assistance to take advantage of telehealth.

Ziegler says continuing to innovate—bringing in new problems to the market and solving them—is key to making healthcare more efficient, accessible, and affordable. “Most of the

“It was clear to us that care needed to be delivered in a new way to accommodate those at high risk or who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes.”

entities—whether they’re a provider, health system, or health plan—have built their own approach to the healthcare transformation journey, strategy, and vision, but being able to come together and align on how we drive success is critical,” she notes.

“We must work toward payer-agnostic solutions so healthcare providers have the same set of activities they perform when a patient comes in,” Ziegler continues. “This represents an opportunity for all payers to put aside our differences and work together toward the common goal of making things easier and more efficient for our providers, and ultimately for our members.” AHL

Looking to Survive

For Will Foster, being a part-time or full-time employee at Krispy Kreme doesn’t dictate one’s commitment to their work. So, he’s creating benefits offerings to reflect that.

By Sara Verdi

The Sweetest Rewards Around

Traditionally, part-time employees aren’t able to access the same benefits and rewards as full-time employees—especially in a retail environment. This type of exclusion can lead to higher turnover rates and a decrease in ROI for companies. Will Foster, head of total rewards for doughnut maker Krispy Kreme, recognizes this potential threat to retaining talent and is using his position to help sweeten the rewards for both part- and full-time Krispy Kremers.

At a high level, Foster is responsible for all things compensation and benefits-related, but he has also taken a special interest in the HR operations side of Krispy Kreme. Foster is part of a small team. With just one other professional to tackle their day-to-day HR objectives, his task list is constantly full. But his prior experiences, and his favorite coffee mug emblazoned with the adage “get shit done,” help him keep his forward momentum.

After graduating from college, Foster joined Lowe’s in an HR generalist role. “I did a little bit of everything,” he says. “From recruiting to payroll and performance management, I did it all. And what I found was that I really liked the payroll and compensation side of things.” From there, Foster landed a role within the compensation department in Lowe’s corporate offices. “Believe it or not, I was doing the work of two people, but I think that’s what reinforced my drive to really ‘get shit done,’” he says with a laugh.

After his time with Lowe’s, Foster held several other compensation and rewards roles, and he believes the cross-utility skill set that he developed throughout these

roles is what ultimately landed him at Krispy Kreme less than two years ago. Since arriving at Krispy Kreme, Foster has had his work cut out for him. “We have to build up, and it is very difficult to build things in an eighty-three-year-old company. It’s one of the hardest things I have ever had to do,” he admits. But, building out a rewards scheme that truly reflects the needs of Krispy Kreme’s employees is, according to Foster, absolutely vital to the business at large.

“We are looking at what we can do to implement a global agenda as well as how we can philosophically align a framework of the things that we value at Krispy Kreme. That looks like big things like maternity leave, down to the little things like the day off on your birthday,” Foster says. He wants to focus on revamping current benefits for employees, as well. “We have to take a look at things like health insurance and see if we can make it free for our employees.

“Education is another one. We have tuition reimbursement programs, and we are looking at enhancing that or even introducing student loan repayments,” he

“Really where it started is from convincing people that someone’s status as part-time has no bearing on their commitment to Krispy Kreme.”

WHAT DOES PEOPLECENTRIC LEADERSHIP MEAN TO YOU?

“To me, it starts with someone who is able to do what I call vision casting. This is where you provide a clear direction, with priorities that will take the team to the end goal, and in a way that explains why that destination matters. The tasks and priorities along the way—and why they are meaningful—matter to bring the vision to life.

“I believe a people-centric leader will ask thought-provoking questions and ask their team what insights they have on the data they are reviewing or information they have at hand. The last piece is knowing the top talent in the organization. The ability to call out the top percentage of individuals who drive the value within the company, to me, helps drive goals home for a leader who is people-centric versus process/task/ technology-centric.” —Will Foster

explains. “We want our part-time employees to be able to participate in these benefits and perks, too.”

But to make benefits widely available to all employees, Foster has had to come a long way. “When I joined Krispy Kreme, part-time employees had zero benefits,” he explains, “and really where it started is from convincing people that someone’s status as part-time has no bearing on their commitment to Krispy Kreme. We’re starting to think about leveling the playing field is by creating benefits and rewards that are tailored to our part-time employees’ needs.” This looks like offering medical plans that are more employee specific than a major, full-access plan, access to life insurance, or the ability to collect a Roth IRA match.

Foster believes that inclusion for the part-time employees and reinforcing a sense of ownership for all employees rather than just the corporate roles is what will allow Krispy Kreme to keep moving forward. “We want to create an ownership mentality at all levels of the company rather than just at the top of the house,” he says. “We are looking at how incentives can both create ownership and be deeply ingrained within the company.”

Right now, to gauge employee satisfaction, Krispy Kreme holds an annual survey, but Foster and his team are partnering with an HR communications company

to design “personas” for Krispy Kremers. “These are designed to help us know who our employees are and what they need in their day-to-day lives,” he says. In addition to getting to know employees on an individual level, these “personas” can inform his team’s future decisions regarding benefits and offerings. The communication effort will hopefully yield good insight on how Foster and his team can prioritize the rewards and benefits scheme for part- and full-time employees alike. While all of this comes with its challenges, Foster has a positive outlook on the work cut out for him. “It’s all really fun because it’s all brand new,” he says. “It’s not like we are a company who has had years to focus on this and crack the nut. We are trying to write the code for how we want Krispy Kreme to look in the future.” AHL

It’s not what we do.

It’s how we do it.

You deserve a risk management partner who works to understand your business needs and provide simple yet innovative solutions. That means bringing you best-in-class products, actionable advice and constant support.

“We want to create an ownership mentality at all levels of the company rather than just at the top of the house.”

On the Cutting

Frank Rainer, senior vice president and general counsel at Memorial Healthcare System, envisions a

more innovative future for healthcare delivery

By Keith Loria

Edgeof Healthcare

o say that Frank Rainer has variety in his position as senior vice president and general counsel for Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood, Florida, is an understatement. His work covers a wide range of topics, from contracts to employment issues to construction to real estate and litigation, as well as healthcare-related subjects such as medical staff matters, managed care, compliance, pharmacy, and licensing.

And that variety is one of the aspects he likes best about his job.

“In private practice, you’re always working on a specific, narrow project for a client, and here I can let my interests flow to whatever I want,” Rainer explains. “I also really like being with this management team. They are smart, they are talented, and they challenge me every day. They’re at the pinnacle of this profession, and it’s always great to work with people of that caliber.”

Purposeful Positioning

After graduating from the University of South Carolina and Florida State University College of Law, Rainer began his career as a real estate transaction lawyer in the late 1980s. A few years later, he started working with physicians and healthcare providers on real estate closings and practice issues at a law office in Tallahassee.

“I came back to start doing that part of healthcare, the transactional side,” he states. “With that, I quickly moved over to all of the regulatory aspects and never looked back from being a healthcare lawyer.”

Working in healthcare has allowed Rainer to pursue two areas of law that have long interested him. The first of those is transactional law. He’s closed thousands of transactions totaling more than $2 billion in deal volume of bank loans, acquisitions, M&A, and organizational formation. The healthcare sector has also provided him with the opportunity to engage in litigation through his work on regulatory hearings and other common matters that go to court.

Rainer’s career has also given him a front-row seat on the evolution of healthcare.

“When I got into healthcare law back in the late ’80s, there wasn’t really a designated area called healthcare law. It was still very much in its infancy,” he reflects. “So

I really got in at the ground floor in the development of healthcare law. Fortunately, for me, timing is everything.”

With thirty-five years of private practice before joining Memorial Healthcare System, working on a wide variety of clients and situations, Rainer believes he positioned himself well to become an in-house counsel for a healthcare organization by continuing his education. He earned a master’s in taxation to bolster his credentials in nonprofit law and to study tax statutes affecting the industry. In addition, he completed both an MBA and a master’s in insurance and risk management to better understand the practical business aspects of the legal matters presented to him.

“I kind of set my career up to get a position like this,” he remembers.

Healthcare as a Long-Term Partner

In his position as SVP and GC, one important aspect of Rainer’s work is his commitment to Memorial Healthcare System’s mission to be on the cutting edge of healthcare delivery.

“After observing healthcare for thirty-five years, watching it grow into what it has become, I realized that there are different aspects of it,” he notes. “People get

“We’ve accidentally been delivering longevity. Now it’s time for us to recognize that and focus on longevity, not just healing, as the mission, and create a total product to deliver to people to achieve that.”

stuck in a rut and they say, ‘Well this is the way we’ve always done it; this is the way we’ll continue to do it.’ Healthcare does not lend itself very well to efficiencies or to real innovation in the distribution and delivery of healthcare.”

Rainer explains that while there have been great innovations in medical devices and treatments, the industry needs new methods of distribution. Rainer observes that there are two basic ways patients receive healthcare: by coming in voluntarily for annual checkups and treatments for colds and aches or by being brought to an emergency room after an accident or catastrophic event.

“Those really are the two ways that people get into the healthcare system,” Rainer remarks. “Healthcare has to change its mentality and recognize that we’re about lifetime care for individuals.”

As a leader, it’s Rainer’s duty to instill a sense of innovation in his team to carry this mission forth. Currently, he manages thirty-seven full-time employees and has seven lawyers and four contract professionals working under him, and his responsibilities include overseeing Memorial Healthcare System’s risk, privacy, and insurance departments.

Rainer notes that his leadership philosophy is rooted in making his staff feel comfortable about expressing their thoughts and analyses on any issues or work they deal with.

“I want to use every brain that’s here to its fullest extent, and I want to get every idea possible that my staff has,” he observes. “The best way to say it is that I want an idea meritocracy.”

In his opinion, the healthcare industry needs to reconfigure itself and become a long-term partner with people throughout all phases of life, since longevity has increased dramatically due to advances in healthcare.

“We need to teach people how to live and pursue healthier lifestyles so that they can achieve longevity through their own actions through supplements, lifestyle changes, and preventive care,” he shares. “There are ways we can achieve even greater longevity for people if we had a healthcare system that was focused

on making people aware of those and delivering those services to them.”

“There’s a great new frontier of business opportunities for healthcare,” he continues. “We’ve accidentally been delivering longevity. Now it’s time for us to recognize that and focus on longevity, not just healing, as the mission, and create a total product to deliver to people to achieve that.” AHL

Fenwick & West congratulates Senior Vice President and General Counsel Frank Rainer for his visionary leadership at Memorial Healthcare System. Fenwick’s privacy and cybersecurity team, coled by partner Jim Koenig, is a leader in HIPAA compliance and enforcement, cybersecurity, and consumer medical information protection in healthcare. Learn more at fenwick.com/privacy.

Stearns Weaver Miller advises healthcare clients on preventative practices as well as pre-suit, litigation, and appellate concerns. We have significant experience defending catastrophic wrongful death, medical malpractice, and professional liability and in licensing for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals. Our trial lawyers are recognized locally, statewide, and nationally.

the 1970s. The professional nucleus of the firm has been together for over thirty (30) years. In that time, the firm has developed a comprehensive civil practice representing clients in both the private and public sector.

Goren, Cherof, Doody & Ezrol, P.A. represents individuals and corporate clients in matters ranging from the sale, acquisition, and refinancing of commercial properties to corporate mergers, employment matters, and day-to-day business operations.

Additionally, the firm represents business entities that require legal representation in restructuring, contract disputes, and the defense of eminent domain proceedings.

“Great leaders do not set out to be leaders; they set out to make a difference.”

The Issues

National, and even global, forces have an unmistakable impact on an executive’s work. Whether it’s a legislative change or an industry-disrupting technological breakthrough, executives must constantly adapt their business strategies to keep their company thriving.

60. Larry Rickles Teva Pharmaceuticals

66. Michael Williamson Pacific Dental Services

70. Lisa Jacoba Global Medical Response

78. Ken Puffer & George Pashardis ePlus Technology Inc.

82. Joline Treanor PeaceHealth

Hitting the Mark

Larry Rickles discusses the nuances of selecting and securing brand names for Teva Pharmaceuticals— and the enormous value provided by getting it right

By Keith Loria

Larry Rickles Chief Trademark Counsel Teva Pharmaceuticals

Courtesy of Teva Pharmaceuticals

Twenty-five years ago, Larry Rickles decided it was time to move in-house. Rickles was already a trademark/copyright lawyer for a law firm, but he was ready for a change in his career. The Harvard Law School grad took a job as an in-house trademark attorney for Johnson & Johnson (J&J), a position he held for nearly seventeen years.

“J&J had a very large pharmaceutical business, so I started working on some of the pharmaceutical trademark projects,” Rickles recalls. “I was still doing the trademark work for some of their consumer products—Band-Aid and Tylenol and things like that—as well as medical devices, but over time the trademark attorneys started focusing on specific aspects of J&J’s business, and I began focusing on pharmaceuticals.”

After leaving J&J and spending a few years as an outside counsel, still dabbling in pharmaceutical trademarks, Rickles took the position of chief trademark counsel for Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2015.

The Right Mix

At Teva, Rickles is responsible for managing a team that handles a portfolio of almost thirty thousand trademarks in dozens of countries worldwide. While most of Teva’s product offerings are pharmaceuticals, Rickles notes that his work is still as much of a puzzle now as it ever was—and for good reason.

Rickles is the only trademark attorney at the company, working alongside three paralegals. In 2016, Teva acquired Actavis, necessitating the integration of more than ten thousand trademarks and domain names into its portfolio and adding to his responsibilities. As the scope of his role has widened, Rickles has added real value to Teva.

“I’ve developed and implemented official policies in trademarks, copyrights, and domain names and established rules on what we do,” he says. “In the domain name area, I’ve been working to bring our portfolio down to a more manageable size so we’re optimizing how and when to renew domain names.”

“There’s a lot more companies [obtaining trademarks], and there are also many more names out there. . . . It’s more likely than before that somebody else has put together the same letters in a similar fashion .”

Rickles has also helped the company in its move into branded drugs and biosimilars, which, unlike many generic drugs in the US, need brand names. “We’ve been able to get the process for creating these global brand names more regularized and formalized, and we’ve come up with a lot of good names for our new products,” he says.

In pharmaceuticals, however, obtaining a trademark has become more complicated over the years—not to mention that the process has become a lot longer.

“There’s a lot more companies doing it, and there are also many more names out there,” Rickles explains. “It’s a very crowded field, and when you clear a name, you have to make sure no one else has that name or something close to it. With all these marks out there, it’s more likely than before that somebody else has put together the same letters in a similar fashion.”

Finding Trademark Treasure

How does the trademark process start?

And who gets to pick the names?

Rickles explains that many trademark projects in the pharmaceutical field start with a naming agency. The agency is given a rundown of the product and what it does. Then, it uses that information to

“In terms of analysis, they are looking at the similarity in names and what they can do to avoid medication errors.”

develop hundreds of names. Next, a team at Teva whittles down the names to just a few strong options that are run through name safety testing (focusing on patient safety) and are moved to Rickles’s team to complete the final process of legal clearance.

“And that takes time,” he says, “time for the agency to develop new names and time for the businesspeople to look at them to see which ones they like and don’t like. That can usually take several months, if not a year.”

Starting early in the product development process is important when coming up with a global name, Rickles notes. In fact, he recommends starting the process one to two years before approval. This time frame also allows for leeway, in case the trademark runs into bumps along the way.

Another aspect that has made obtaining a trademark more challenging is the part that regulatory agencies play in the process. Previously, trademark approval was the province of trademark offices. Now, the FDA in the US and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Europe, among others, have started doing their own review of trademarks.

“One would think the analysis is similar to what a trademark office does, in the sense of looking to see if there are similar

marks out there, but they come at it from a different perspective,” he explains. “In terms of analysis, they are looking at the similarity in names and what they can do to avoid medication errors.”

Even with companies preparing the names and clearing them beforehand, about 50 percent of all names proposed for pharmaceuticals get rejected. Throw in the wrinkle that a name could be approved in Europe but not the US, and the puzzle only gets harder. Having a global name, Rickles notes, is beneficial to a business, as it makes packaging, advertising, and branding easier. More important, a global name is safest for patients and physicians, so that they are not confused by the same drug having different names in different parts of the world.

“It’s more important to have people in your organization or an outside law firm that really knows what you’re doing here,” he says. “In the clearing and filing of these trademarks, pharmaceuticals are more difficult than most other products or services.”

While the path to finding the perfect name may have twists and turns, Rickles says that going through the maze is his favorite part. And even after twenty-five years in the industry, he knows that finding the perfect name leads to endless possibilities. AHL

Values at the Forefront of Care

Pacific Dental Services’ Michael Williamson discusses how the company’s values-based compliance approach frees staff and clinicians from the limitations of a strict rulesbased environment

By Frederick Jerant

As one of the largest dental support organizations (DSO) in the US, Pacific Dental Services (PDS), headquartered in Irvine, California, provides administrative and business support—management, administration, legal, IT, maintenance, real estate, compliance, and other services—to 813 individually owned dental practices across the US.

“It frees clinicians to pursue their passion—practicing the art and science of dentistry—unhindered by the headaches and effort of running the business,” says Michael Williamson, vice president of compliance and ethics.

But while there are similar DSOs, PDS’ values-based approach is a key differentiator.

“Rather than a myopic focus on patient flow, PDS is intentionally focused on optimizing each individual clinician’s clinical culture so that a lifelong relationship is created with patients. We want doctors

Michael Williamson VP of Compliance & Ethics Pacific Dental Services Courtesy of Pacific Dental Services

and patients to have relational rather than transactional experiences,” Williamson says. To accomplish this goal for the doctors PDS supports, he notes, the organization must emphasize fulfilling a mutually held purpose through the pursuit of commonly held values. Stephen E. Thorne IV, the company founder and CEO, exemplifies the values and culture that PDS and its supported practices aspire to bring to life.

Thorne combines a tremendous entrepreneurial spirit with a deeply held, values-based orientation, Williamson says. When he founded PDS in 1994, its culture was an organic and authentic outgrowth of his personality and experiences, including those gained from his father, a dentist who still practices today.

Thorne took it upon himself and the teams he developed in those early days to cascade his values-oriented approach throughout the company, office-to-office and person-to-person, for more than twenty-five years. Ultimately, PDS’ pace of growth created challenges for Thorne to maintain that level of personal involvement.

Enter Williamson. Originally an attorney at a general practice firm in Massachusetts, he found that being adversarial simply for economic benefit didn’t sit well with him. In 1997, he formed his own firm. For ten years, he specialized in institutional representation in all areas of health law and healthcare regulatory compliance. From there, he served as assistant general counsel in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, focusing on patient care and associated regulatory issues. He later served as chief compliance officer at APS Healthcare and chief compliance officer for Smile Brands Inc., which offers services similar to those of PDS.

When Williamson joined PDS in 2014, it was a comfortable fit. “One thing that jumped out at me immediately was the company’s value statements, what we call our ‘We Believes.’ One states that ‘we’re not big on rules and regulations but demand that each of us take care of problems as they arise.’ My philosophy on compliance is values based, not rules based, so it was natural for me to gravitate to that culture,” he says.

Williamson’s responsibilities include managing all aspects of enterprise- and office-level compliance; drafting and refining policies and procedures; conducting related learning programs; investigating adverse

situations and implementing corrective actions; and acting as a steward of the company’s culture and values.

“[The values] speak to self-governance,” Williamson says, “and encourage team members to govern themselves based on shared values—not a strict set of rules.”

Williamson adds that “rules” define bare-minimum expectations, but PDS aspires to do more. “We want to inspire people to the highest ethical standards,” he continues. “People inspired by a deeply held, commonly applied set of values can guide themselves more efficiently, effectively, and genuinely than having to stop and digest a complex set of rules before deciding how to behave.”

The company’s eight We Believe statements were refined into a behavioral framework that includes principles to inspire—rather than control—behaviors.

“Over an eighteen-month period, using input from team members at every level and followed by intensive

“People inspired by a deeply held, commonly applied set of values can guide themselves more efficiently, effectively, and genuinely than having to stop and digest a complex set of rules before deciding how to behave.”

workshops, we were able to identify two desired behaviors for each We Believe value statement,” Williamson says. “Now, we have a genuinely cocreated code of conduct and ethics. It’s more organic and authentic than PDS issuing a list of ‘you musts.’ They provide everyone a clearly defined opportunity to self-govern. They’ve become the basis of everything we do.”

That sense of empowerment infuses all aspects of the business, including its client base—the doctors PDS supports.

“We strive to attract practitioners for whom our values and culture resonate. Our supported doctors know that PDS will not stifle their drive or their operations but instead guide them as they make their own decisions,” Williamson explains. “When we get it right, we are facilitating the compliant and ethical practice of dentistry in a way that is most authentic to our supported owners and their businesses.”

PDS is in the early phases of implementing the Epic electronic medical record software application: approximately thirty supported practices were using it in the latter half of 2020. “Dental health tends to be segmented from the rest of the medical care system because of a perception that it doesn’t impact the rest of your body, but there is a systemic link. Epic will enable dentists to take a holistic view of a patient’s health status, connecting dots between the mouth and the body that might otherwise stay unconnected,” Williamson says.

And as PDS continues to innovate, evolve, and grow, its values-based approach will carry through.

“I’m really passionate about using the power of values to elevate behaviors,” he says. “We are about scaling businesses as well as values. People who are inspired by purpose and guided by common values have enormous power to contribute to an organization’s long-term significance.” AHL

HealthFirst is pleased to partner with Pacific Dental Services and set high standards for compliance management while also supporting PDS’ growth. By integrating patient safety and infection control solutions with the OnTraq application, HealthFirst equips PDS with a compliance platform for efficiency, visibility, and scalability across the organization.

HR’s First Responder

At Global Medical Response, the world’s largest medical transport company, Lisa Jacoba ensures that frontline workers and support function employees are treated with care and respect

By Billy Yost

Portraits by Matt Nager

Whether she knew it or not, Lisa Jacoba provided the most appropriate soundtrack possible while discussing her role as chief human resources officer for Global Medical Response (GMR), an organization that provides emergency and patient relocation services in the United States and around the world. Over the course of her interview, there were at least ten pings from incoming messages. These urgent messages highlighted not just the challenges HR professionals face when operating in the emergency healthcare space but also the unique issues they are contending with as they seek to serve patients during one of the severest public health crises in history.

As if those challenges weren’t enough, take into account that Jacoba was barely a year and half into her first healthcaresupporting role after a lengthy HR career in financial services support. Throw in the continuing efforts of integrating the 2018 merger of Air Medical Group Holdings and American Medical Response to operate under GMR’s umbrella, and one could say Jacoba has her hands full.

Luckily, the CHRO is well versed in operating in challenging circumstances, and adapting to a new industry is something she’s taken in stride.

No Matter the Industry

Having overseen HR operations not only in multiple sectors but in multiple countries, the CHRO has found a through line that keeps her grounded in her new role. “Whether it’s financial services, manufacturing, or now healthcare, most people want the same things,” Jacoba explains. “They want to be treated fairly. They want to be paid fairly and to be recognized for the contributions they make to their business. It really transcends most, if not all, industries.”

Jacoba says that her role in helping reintroduce a newly spun-off Western Union to the public and to its employees in 2006 was where she learned most about helping shape company identity and the perpetual cycle a motivated workforce can bring to creating culture, and vice versa. It was also a chance to develop HR practices almost entirely from scratch.

“Rather than telling one side to adapt to a whole new operational model, we want this to be a merger of equals . That approach will serve us best in the future.”

She spent three years in London while with Western Union. Even an ocean away, she found that the employees she was supporting, obvious cultural differences aside, were still all striving for the same considerations. “It just motivated me to follow those fundamental golden rule principles,” Jacoba says. She then brought these experiences to her role at GMR, where she focuses on similar efforts.

One of Jacoba’s other innate qualities has come in handy while taking on a new industry. “I’m just a naturally curious person, and I’m not afraid to ask questions,” the CHRO says. “Everyone at GMR has been very patient as I’ve learned the healthcare industry, the terminology, and our complex business. I’ve tried to spend a lot of time just educating myself about healthcare.”

The Best of Both Cultures

The 2018 merger between Air Medical Group Holdings and American Medical Response involved the joining of one of the largest ground ambulance companies with one of the largest air ambulance services to form Global Medical Response. In theory, it’s the best of both worlds and a perfect pairing of complementary emergency services with managed transportation, along with community, industrial or specialty, and wildland

fire services. But that doesn’t mean the merger was easy.

“[The fact that] I’ve faced challenging circumstances in my career is part of the reason I was brought in to help support this integration,” Jacoba says. “Our HR focus has been to make sure that we’re looking at the best practices of both of these companies and finding the right balance between the two. Rather than telling one side to adapt to a whole new operational model, we want this to be

“Most people want the same things. They want to be treated fairly. They want to be paid fairly and to be recognized for the contributions they make to their business. It really transcends most, if not all, industries.”

Lisa Jacoba CHRO Global Medical Response

a merger of equals. That approach will serve us best in the future.”

Those HR practices and integrations are ongoing. On the backend, it meant mammoth system integration efforts: HRIS systems, recruiting platforms, and consolidating all the benefits programs. The first year, the companies were allowed to work fairly autonomously as GMR prepared to merge systems, culture, and operating models. Now, those efforts are moving forward amid the pandemic.

Frontline Support

The COVID-19 pandemic, challenging for any industry, has been particularly so for GMR, given that the bulk of its employees are on the very front lines of healthcare. Jacoba says she’s proud of how the organization has supported those working in some of the most difficult circumstances they’ve ever faced.

“We continue to try to figure out the best way to support our frontline workers,” Jacoba says. “We currently offer financial support for childcare, and

we’ve had to put so many new policies in place for those workers who have had to quarantine, self-isolate, or have contracted COVID due to their job duties.”

Like many other companies, GMR has also established new policies and guidelines for its support teams working from home—and, wherever necessary, for the safe return of those employees to the workplace.

When GMR was asked to provide new services related to COVID-19 that they had not provided in the past, the HR team was tasked with partnering with the business to essentially help create these new service offerings. “The pandemic has brought about new needs for our communities, and I’m proud we’ve been able to respond,” Jacoba says.

Jacoba also says she’s greatly heartened by the support she’s seen for reimagined conversations on racial justice and the social justice movements that reached a fevered pitch during the pandemic.

“At GMR, we truly value the diversity and unique qualities that every team member brings to the job. All employees and our patients should be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. We’ve become even more sensitive to the urgency of the conversation and the actions we must take,” Jacoba says. “We’ve kicked off new diversity and inclusion endeavors, and HR is helping lead the way.” AHL

Advocates, Not Salesmen

The healthcare team at ePlus is focused on enabling long-term solutions, not simply making a sale

By Billy Yost

e Plus Technology didn’t become a $2.2 billion business by one-offing its extensive list of IT partners across all verticals. The IT integrator is precisely where it is because of its commitment to engaging customers in an ongoing and collaborative IT journey rooted in what those customers actually need, not what they can be sold. That seems no clearer than in ePlus’ healthcare division.

Vice President of Healthcare George Pashardis and Healthcare Chief Technology Officer Ken Puffer have united visions when it comes to the approach of their healthcare and health system clients. “We don’t just want to sell a product and walk away from it,” Puffer says. “I think healthcare organizations that work with us recognize the difference in how we work with them and place emphasis on their success and partnership. We have an investment in our customer base that we truly view as a partnership.”

Shifting Priorities on a Dime

The focus on relationship cultivation is made most evident by the COVID-19 pandemic and in the pivot of so many of ePlus’ healthcare clients that haven’t sought to end the partnership; instead, they’ve required it to evolve in new ways. And that, says Pashardis—who’s been with ePlus for more than twenty years—is where the company is most effective.

“We’ve told our account executives across the country that you must make yourself relevant and get to understand your customer’s IT strategy because it will change,” the VP says. “Especially now, IT spends have shifted priorities dramatically, and it’s our job to understand how we can be of value and make their lives easier.”

While healthcare had been one of the slower adopters of cloud-based integration due to the exponentially complex relationship between physicians, patients, electronic medical records, and information security, ePlus’ healthcare division has seen those needs ratchet up almost overnight due to the pandemic.

“Services like telehealth go back five years or so, and it seemed like something everyone wanted to invest

in,” Pashardis says. “But the reimbursement models really didn’t support it. Now, you’re looking at hospitals who were maybe doing between twenty-five and fifty of these virtual visits a day suddenly needing to do a couple thousand.”

That’s not just about technological needs, which Pashardis says are relatively easy to account for. It’s the manpower. “In some cases, you’re moving from training five people to maybe fifty to support all of this technology,” Puffer says. “It’s going to be interesting to see as patients become more accepting of telemedicine just what happens when patients are asked to start going back on-site and what kind of adaptation is required.” Helping customers navigate the funds made available for different reimbursement programs is also a priority

“We don’t just want to sell a product and walk away from it. . . . We have an investment in our customer base that we truly view as a partnership.” —Ken Puffer

George Pashardis VP of Healthcare ePlus Technology Inc.

Ken Puffer Healthcare CTO ePlus Technology Inc.

Courtesy of ePlus Technology Inc.

at ePlus. “Some of our customers wouldn’t be able to really grow their telehealth and telemedicine programs without these grants and funds,” Pashardis says. “And not every organization has a grants team that’s aware of all of the viable options. Let’s face it: hospitals aren’t doing well financially right now, and we need to do what we can to help them move forward.”

Investing vs. Insisting

Pashardis and Puffer mention the same idea in a few different ways during their interview. It boils down to the need for a company like ePlus to be an advocate, not a salesman, for its partners and customers. “I think what sets us apart is the connection we have with our organizations,” Puffer says. “You have to be an active listener and work through what’s really going to serve their best interests. It’s more than just providing them what we think they need: it’s listening, taking their feedback, and building off of it to put together solutions that are going to be effective.”

“I think cloud integration is a good example of that,” Pashardis chimes in. “It just wasn’t a priority for our customers for a number of reasons, but once COVID hit, we’ve really put our efforts into seventh gear as those kinds of technologies have become essential in a very short period of time.” These weren’t solutions ePlus had to create overnight, they were ready and awaiting deployment for when customers decided it was time. And this time has been, for better or worse, unlike any other. For the healthcare division, data security— already a top consideration—somehow keeps expanding in importance. Pashardis explains how cyberattacks have increased exponentially since the beginning of 2020, noting that “security continues to be our number one priority for our customers.”

Puffer agrees and takes a wider look at what the pandemic means for ePlus’ customers, now as well as in the

future. “I think COVID has really caused some of our healthcare customers to rethink how they’re operating internally,” Puffer says. “Organizations are looking at how much of their current knowledge can be leveraged and how much they need to learn. We’re here to help make them successful.”

Pashardis says maintaining relationships with partners is also about more than IT needs. “Sometimes it’s as simple as buying lunch for our heroes in healthcare,” the VP says. “People are out there on the front lines doing amazing things, and it’s important for us to find different ways of letting them know how much we appreciate their heroic efforts. We’re invested in our customers, and we want them to feel it.” AHL

“People are out there on the front lines doing amazing things, and it’s important for us to find different ways of letting them know how much we appreciate their heroic efforts. We’re invested in our customers, and we want them to feel it.”

—George Pashardis

Calm Amidst the Storm

EVP Joline

Treanor’s affinity for change has helped her—and nonprofit organization

PeaceHealth—adapt to one of the biggest challenges the healthcare industry has ever faced By Zayvelle

Williamson

When American Healthcare Leader spoke with Joline Treanor in 2017, the executive emphasized her affinity for change and uncertainty. As a Deloitte consultant, she was drawn to the fluidity of the modern healthcare landscape and consequently decided to transition to an in-house HR role at St. Joseph Health System. Barely a year after she joined the organization, Treanor once again embraced the unknown when she decided to eliminate her own position in the course of executing St. Joseph’s historic merger with Providence Health & Services.

Today, as executive vice president of people and culture at PeaceHealth, Treanor’s willingness to embrace uncertainty has made her more of an asset than ever before.

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry— and the HR function in particular—was facing wide-scale disruption. “People account for more than 50 percent of the budget for most health systems in the United States today,” explains Dan White, president of workforce solutions for AMN Healthcare Services. “And both healthcare and recruiting are being disrupted by big tech. So, leading health systems are looking to leverage that disruption and transform their talent practices to attract and retain the best people, while streamlining their overall costs.

“Joline represents that magical combination of tenured consultant and senior practitioner,” White continues, “which CEOs are looking for to drive this change toward total talent management in the gig economy.”

Indeed, when Treanor accepted the position of EVP in August 2019, she emphasized her goal to establish people and talent strategies focused on attracting, retaining, and developing

CARING FOR THE COMMUNITY

PeaceHealth knows that health and well-being is about far more than the care that is administered in hospitals and medical centers. The nonprofit has worked to support community wellbeing throughout the Pacific Northwest and currently prioritizes social determinants of health such as food insecurities, housing access, and expanded care options.

$191 million annual community investment

30 local grants

26,297 volunteer hours

Source: PeaceHealth

“During these unprecedented times, PeaceHealth stands at the forefront of caring . Not just for the communities and patients we are privileged to serve but for each other.”

high-caliber talent—even within an environment of constant change.

“I often reflect on this quote from author James Michener, ‘And then along comes these differential experiences that you don’t look for, you don’t plan for but boy, you’d better not miss them,’” Treanor remarked in a PeaceHealth statement.

At PeaceHealth, a not-for-profit healthcare system encompassing hospitals, clinics, and laboratories in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, Treanor has flourished, achieving her talent and organizational goals despite the impact of the pandemic.

In fact, just a few months after the nation saw large-scale layoffs and furloughs as a result of COVID-19, PeaceHealth welcomed nine healthcare professionals of diverse backgrounds to its facilities in Bellingham, Washington. Each of these individuals was brought on board the PeaceHealth team in order to better ensure that every person visiting one of the organization’s facilities receives safe, compassionate care.

In addition to the care of PeaceHealth patients, Treanor has also devoted herself to ensuring the well-being of the sixteen thousand caregivers working at the organization. Many of those caregivers have lost family members as a result of the pandemic, had to adapt as a result of emergency childcare needs, or have experienced increased financial hardships. To help support its caregivers and address their personal financial needs, PeaceHealth established a Caregiver Heroes Emergency Fund (CHEF).

“During these unprecedented times, PeaceHealth stands at the forefront of

caring. Not just for the communities and patients we are privileged to serve but for each other,” Treanor said of the CHEF. “Our PeaceHealth mission calls us to treat each person in a loving and caring way, and we extend this same compassionate care to our caregivers.

“Through the COVID-19 Caregiver Heroes Emergency Fund, administered by Save First Financial and Catholic Charities, our caregivers who need it most can receive emergency funding to help with housing, utilities, transportation, food, and childcare costs,” the EVP added.

In the future, Treanor may very well be forced to use her talents to help the organization, its caregivers, and its patients adapt to other challenges and periods of uncertainty. Nevertheless, she remains hopeful about the days to come.

“From my very first conversation . . . with PeaceHealth, I could feel this spirit of infectious excitement, passion, and optimism,” she said in a statement. “You can see it in the work that is being done in the communities PeaceHealth is privileged to serve . . . and most importantly, hearing it directly from the caregivers and leaders.” AHL

The health industry is on the cusp of transformation. A wide range of companies are already making strategic investments that could form the foundation for a future of health that is defined by radically interoperable data, open and secure platforms, and consumer-driven care. For more on Deloitte ’s perspective, visit deloitte.com/future.

The Business

Healthcare is a constantly evolving industry that demands executives to plan ahead. Often, this means business leaders need to address department- or companywide issues to remain focused on driving innovation and devising strategies to maintain a high level of care.

88. Brennan Torregrossa GlaxoSmithKline

96. Jeannine Meo Altrogge AmerisourceBergen Corporation

104. Donna Maxwell & Debra Ingram Epicor Software Corporation

108. Michael Parris Texas Health Resources

Unrivaled Mission

As GSK strives to make progress in COVID-19 treatment, Brennan Torregrossa helps carry forth that mission through unwavering, authentic leadership

By Billy Yost

Portraits by Gillian Fry

B

rennan Torregrossa is unshakable. When asked any question, even the most complex, there seems to always be “two things” that comprise his answers. But unlike the rest of us who default to same, safe answers, he calls his shot and hits his mark. Every time.

The senior vice president and head of global litigation at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has risen from assistant general counsel to vice president to his current role over a decade for a pharmaceutical company that is on the absolute front lines of finding a solution to the COVID19 pandemic. The week of speaking, GSK and partner VIR Biotechnology were okayed to progress their trial of an experimental antibody—genetically modified proteins found in people who have survived COVID-19–to treat the infection after a volunteer study proved hopeful. After the US-based study of twenty participants, it will now be expanded to 1,300 patients globally in Phase 3 FDA trials.

“The last six months have impacted me in two ways,” Torregrossa explains in his September 2020 interview. “First, my view that we have some of the absolute best people at this company has been confirmed by the way this organization has treated its employees every step of the way. Every time our CEO Emma Walmsley speaks to us, the first question is ‘How are our employees doing?’ She is not asking about how they are doing at their jobs. She’s asking if they have everything that they need to get through these difficult times.

“When you have that kind of support from something as important in your life as the company you work for,” he continues, “your loyalty and your ability to handle those difficult situations is just improved beyond a way that words can express.”

The second part is Torregrossa’s response is more personal to him as a leader and a motivator of his team. “I think I would find it very hard to get through these difficult times if I wasn’t working for a company that may have the keys to the problem we find ourselves in,” Torregrossa says. “It’s incredibly motivating. Even though I work on litigation and investigations, I work for a company that is helping to find solutions to COVID. You don’t feel helpless with the mission that we have.”

“Helpless” is not a word that comes to mind when running down the exploits of the SVP. Torregrossa has been pursuing his passion since the moment he left law school. Clerking for US District Court Judge Hebert J. Hutton was one of the most important decisions the lawyer says he’s ever made.

“I gave up a substantial salary to work as a federal employee for a year, but it taught me more about the law than any experience I could have gotten in that year otherwise,” Torregrossa says. “Judge Hutton was a mentor to me. He would take me back to his chambers and we would discuss what worked well in a trial and what didn’t. He’d ask me to think about how a lawyer could

“No matter what waters you’re thrown into, how hot those waters may be, or the fact that you don’t know your way around, excellent judgment will always guide you .”

fundamentally impact the outcome of a case by trying something different than what I had witnessed.”

A courtroom buff, Torregrossa was amazed to find himself eventually searching for a new challenge in-house. “I came to find that I enjoyed the creativity,” Torregrossa says of his first, and he hopes last, in-house role at GSK. “I felt like more of a complete lawyer because I wasn’t so specialized. I wanted to use that creativity to solve problems in a way that felt like it had more purpose.” The

former associate particularly disliked feeling like a singular tool of a toolbox, called on for a particular task but never able to see the finished product. This was entirely the opposite.

With this recent promotion, Torregrossa has had to take on a jurisdiction much larger than any given state or region. It’s now the entire globe. “I would say there are two elements to it that are very different,” Torregrossa starts. “The first element is that the breadth of your disputes can be national or international

Brennan Torregrossa SVP and Head of Global Litigation GlaxoSmithKline

“I’m responsible for inspiring and working with a broad set of lawyers and driving them to get their own best results in their own way, not mine.”

Leading the Way

King & Spalding salutes our friend Brennan Torregrossa for his innovation and leadership at GlaxoSmithKline.

The STRENGTH behind the Science.

and they can cover any subject matter area: injury, anti-competition, investigations, whatever may come your way.”

Now more than ever, healthcare needs leaders. Phillips Lytle congratulates Brennan Torregrossa for his well-deserved recognition as an American Healthcare Leader, and his important role in helping GSK deliver therapies that enhance peoples’ lives.

Torregrossa says that he has to rely on good core legal judgment time and time again to act as a guide. “No matter what waters you’re thrown into, how hot those waters may be, or the fact that you don’t know your way around, excellent judgment will always guide you.” Torregrossa says he’s grateful to his own judgment in that he never turned down a single case that came his way as a litigator, and so his own breadth of experience provides a substantial net to brace the fall of any heavy issue.

But don’t forget about the second part.

“The leadership component of this is also challenging because everything that got you to a leadership position are all things you cannot rely on as a skill set to be a good leader,” Torregrossa explains. The lawyer always preferred to act independently and in his own way. “Now I’m responsible for inspiring and working with a broad set of lawyers and driving them to get their own best results in their own way, not mine. We have such a talented and experienced set of litigators and investigators at GSK, and it is vital we do not approach our challenging and

complicated issues from just one point of view.”

Fortunately, Torregrossa says this lesson wasn’t a grueling proposition he had to have beaten into his leadership style. “It was more like a switch flipping,” the SVP says. “I have been fortunate and continue to be fortunate to have great leaders, like our General Counsel James Ford, who remind me to be a leader, not like him, but authentic and in my own way.” AHL

Recognized leaders in product liability and mass tort litigation

Named “Practice Group of the Year” for Product Liability by Law360, “Litigation

Department of the Year for Product Liability”

by New York Law Journal, and a finalist for “Products Liability Department of the Year” by The American Lawyer, Dechert’s acclaimed litigators have an established record of helping life sciences clients successfully navigate and resolve their toughest and most complex product liability and consumer class action matters.

dechert.com

Dechert LLP is a proud partner of GlaxoSmithKline and we look forward to building on our shared success. Dechert is a leading global law firm with twentysix offices around the world. We advise on matters of the greatest complexity, bringing energy, creativity, and efficient management of legal issues to deliver commercial and practical advice for clients.

Phillips Lytle attorneys and scientific specialists provide sound strategic counsel regarding the scientific defense of pharmaceuticals, biologics, and medical devices. Our expertise in the intersection of law and science, developed over decades, is recognized and relied on by counsel domestically and internationally.

Healthcare’s Perfect Equation

With decades of financial planning and analysis under her belt, Jeannine Meo Altrogge uses finance to further AmerisourceBergen’s mission for a healthier future

By Clint Worthington

eannine Meo Altrogge likes to think of herself as a people person—a skill set not often characteristic of people in finance and accounting positions. But her decades in financial planning and analysis have put those people skills to great use, both in her prior work at AT&T and her current position as senior vice president of financial planning and analysis for Pennsylvania-based healthcare services company AmerisourceBergen Corporation (ABC).

Before ABC, Altrogge spent nearly twenty years in various AT&T businesses, including LSI, Lucent, Agere Systems, and others, mostly in finance roles. But the last two and a half years saw her spend her time in supply chain work, which taught her about not just allocation and distribution of components but also the value of communication and collaboration. “My favorite part was always the customer service aspect of it, the people side,” she says.

But after eighteen years at AT&T, she grew weary of the yearly layoffs that created an extremely competitive working environment, which dovetailed nicely with a friend’s suggestion to move on to ABC; and in 2010, she came on as director of financial planning and analysis.

While Altrogge was nervous at first to make such a big change, she looks back on it now as “the absolute best decision [she] ever made.” There, she found

collaboration instead of competitiveness, her fellow team members working together to make a difference for the patients and practitioners who benefit from ABC’s services and solutions.

However, Altrogge’s introduction to the job wasn’t easy: she had to build a team from scratch in the wake of the departing finance head whose position she was filling. Luckily, her experience working across so many areas of AT&T’s business came in handy; she knew how to talk to people from different departments and disciplines. “I got everyone together to work out what was missing in the planning processes, and figured out how to move forward,” she says.

Altrogge also had to create a consistent cash flow model for a business that initially lacked one, which she accomplished with the aid of a complex Excel modeling tool of her own design. The tool integrates profit & loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements to model long-term financial plans and M&A due diligence analyses. The data is now used by the CEO and CFO for board presentations and approvals.

“ABC has really become more complex, which has driven the way my role in the organization has grown,” Altrogge notes.

The key, she says, was her gift for communication and collaboration. “I have no authority over these different departments,” Altrogge says, “so it’s all about influencing.” Instead of calling

“Many people think of finance as just numbers, but I see it as a way to prompt [ABC] to thoughtfully plan for a future that achieves our purpose.”

BOARDS WITH A BRIGHTER PURPOSE

In addition to her work at AmerisourceBergen Corporation, Jeannine Meo Altrogge spends much of her free time sitting on boards of organizations that do good both inside and outside of her organization. First, there’s ABC’s own Associate Assistance Fund, which helps employees experiencing financial hardship. “It’s a great feeling knowing we’re helping our employees through hard times,” Altrogge says. “That’s my favorite meeting every week.”

She also sits on the board of StudentsCare, a nonprofit that matches college student volunteers with pediatric patients to brighten their hospital stay. This cause resonates particularly with Altrogge, who remembers long stays in the hospital with her children when they were seeking medical treatment. “I’ll never forget seeing one critically ill child playing with a toy and seeing something as simple as that making him smile,” she notes.

Andrew Nagy

department heads with bad news, Altrogge learned to problem-solve by framing issues in ways her recipient could understand, which helped streamline processes at ABC.

One of the biggest projects Altrogge is currently working on at ABC is enterprise performance management, taking a holistic approach to forecasting and SEC reporting on both the planning and consolidation sides of the equation.

“Over the years, we’ve had many acquisitions, but we haven’t spent much time integrating them into our systems,” she admits. Rather than act as “serial problem solvers,” she’s worked to move from applying Band-Aids on big infrastructural problems to rebuilding more elegant solutions from the ground up.

Among these solutions is Altrogge’s initiative to create an accessible,

cloud-based system that would be easy to use for everyone at ABC, which mitigates the risk of losing information should team members leave. This involved adopting the popular Oracle cloud-based system, a systemic transformation of their planning tools which has been a full-time job for Altrogge over the past two years. “It’s been a ton of work, but it’s going to be well worth it in the end,” she says, as they predict they’ll have all reporting coming out of the new system by September 2020.

Rich Schmitt, managing director and enterprise performance management leader at Huron Consulting Group, reinforces the collaboration and partnership Altrogge has brought to the program.

“A cloud transformation at an organization as big as ABC requires not only strong leadership and vision but

Jeannine Meo Altrogge SVP of Financial Planning & Analysis AmerisourceBergen Corporation

“Handling getting drugs to pharmacies sounds simpler than the semiconductor industry, but it’s not as simple as it sounds : there are numerous commercial units and corporate functions and so many nuances.”

constantly keeping the project and business teams motivated and focused,” Schmitt says. “Jeannine’s ability to continually bring the internal and external teams together despite the many challenges of a large program and the ongoing remote work environment has been critical to realizing the value of this ABC investment.”

All of Altrogge’s hard work, she notes, is tied into ABC’s mission statement to create healthier futures. “Handling getting drugs to pharmacies sounds simpler than the semiconductor industry,” Altrogge says of her career path. “But it’s not as simple as it sounds: there are numerous commercial units and corporate functions and so many nuances.”

While her work doesn’t personally touch the end-user, Altrogge sees the finance side of ABC’s work playing a huge part in stimulating innovation and driving collaboration. “Our goal is elevating the services and experience we offer our customers and the patients that they serve,” she explains. “Many people think of finance as just numbers, but I see it as a way to prompt [ABC] to thoughtfully plan for a future that achieves our purpose.” AHL

A Bot for You and Me

Epicor’s introduction of MeBeBot gives employees access to a swath of internal information about HR, IT, and operations at the touch of a button

By Charlotte Foer

In the past few years, Austin, Texas, has established itself as a burgeoning tech hub, seeing an influx of young tech professionals and firms alike plant roots in town. Compared with the reputable Silicon Valley, Austin’s living and operating costs are far lower. Not to mention, Austin being home to multiple colleges offers a skilled labor force, eager to advance the industry. One company that made the move from California to Austin early on is Epicor Software Corporation. Founded in 1972, Epicor moved to its Texas headquarters in 2014 and has seen incredible growth since, with 4,100 employees and more than 20,000 customers worldwide.

In late August 2020, Epicor was sold by private equity giant KKR to Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC (CD&R), a firm that specializes in industry-specific software, for $4.7 billion, resulting in one of the largest software deals in Austin since Whole Foods Market was acquired by Amazon in 2017 for $13.7 billion. Since 2011, when KKR purchased Epicor, the company’s value increased more than 40 percent in the past four years alone—a testament to Austin’s potential for success.

“We welcome this new partnership with CD&R, which shares our vision for growing the company, and I thank

KKR for a highly successful partnership these past few years,” Epicor CEO Steve Murphy said in a written statement about the acquisition.

With CD&R taking Epicor’s wheel, and already promising growth on the horizon, hopes are high that this will be Epicor’s best acquisition yet. “For Epicor, CD&R may be a very good fit,” said Barbara Peck, a principal analyst at Nucleus Research, in an article for TechTarget. “They tend to work with a company to build it, which is what Epicor needs.”

Nonetheless, the software company promises its customers that under new ownership, it will accelerate product innovation to bring the most customized, relevant offerings to them. “With the investment announced, we will only continue to get better for our customers, while continuing to provide the personalized service they expect,” the company wrote in a statement.

It’s not just for its customers that Epicor is offering the most. For the past year, Director of Global Benefits

Donna Maxwell and Senior Director of HR Technology and Operations Debra Ingram have been working together to bring employees a new and improved tool for benefits and beyond. MeBeBot, an AI assistant, was designed to allow employees to get quick answers to

“Unlike costly call centers, which can create response delays for employees, MeBeBot’s Intelligent Assistant provides answers instantly. This improves productivity and saves time so we can stay focused on helping our customers.”

-Debra Ingram

common internal company questions about HR, IT, and operations. By using platforms like Microsoft Teams and EpicNet, employees are able to stay informed about all facets of their job at the press of a button.

Launched across all thirty of Epicor’s global offices, MeBeBot is capable of answering hundreds of different employee questions every day. That capability is especially valuable in today’s environment, as much of Epicor’s workforce works remotely. Employees can ask MeBeBot questions like, “Does my insurance cover urgent care costs?” and “Can you help me use web conferencing tools?”

Because of its integration with Microsoft Teams and Epicor’s intranet, the software is constantly updating answers without the need for development assistance. Within ten days of launching MeBeBot, Epicor’s IT and HR teams were able to edit its knowledge base to best support employees in other countries.

“MeBeBot’s Intelligent Assistant is available both online and mobile 24/7 for our employees and is expected to assist with at least 80 percent of the most common questions our team receives,” Ingram told HRTechFeed. “Unlike costly call centers, which can create response delays for employees, MeBeBot’s

Intelligent Assistant provides answers instantly. This improves productivity and saves time so we can stay focused on helping our customers. Even better, it’s easy to use and the HR and IT teams can update answers in real time using the admin portal.”

Regardless of Epicor’s breadth, and goals of becoming bigger and better than ever, MeBeBot allows the company to reach all employees effectively and collaboratively. With initiatives like these leading the charge of the company’s goals in 2021 and beyond, it’s clear that Epicor’s problem-solving technology—both internal and external—are meant to build solutions together, whether they partner with their employees, their vendors, or their customers. AHL

Delta Dental is proud to partner with Epicor's Donna Maxwell and Deb Ingram, who take care of their employees through innovative human resources and benefits solutions. Delta Dental offers comprehensive, high-quality oral healthcare coverage to millions of enrollees through the nation's strongest network of dental providers. Visit deltadentalins.com.

Making Care Efficient but Personal

Michael Parris uses data to determine the best course of action for patients and colleagues alike at Texas Health Resources

By Keith Loria

Michael Parris began his career in the health sector with a background in industrial engineering. And while those may seem very different, Parris points out that his prior work made him an “idea person,” allowing him the opportunity to make a healthcare system work better.

“We like to improve things and make them more efficient,” Parris says of his fellow engineers. “If you look at healthcare in general, there’s always a lot of room for improvement and a lot of room for efficiencies.”

A renowned healthcare analytic and process improvement executive, Parris serves as vice president of data and analytics at Texas Health Resources. But before entering the healthcare field, he redesigned

assembly lines for GE, Ford Motor Company, and Trane Air Conditioning—work that involved examining how processes flow through companies, with a focus on customization.

Parris’s healthcare career began with his efforts in process and improvement, where he worked with physicians and nurses to standardize clinical practices. Through that experience, he gained an understanding of how data works in healthcare. At his previous company, he led a team of over two hundred—including analyst, ETL, and nurse abstractor personnel—which prepared him to take on his role at Texas Health Resources in March 2018.

Michael Parris VP of Data & Analytics Texas Health Resources

Courtesy of Michael Parris

“When I came in, they had some dashboard experience and they had the ability pull data from multiple sources,” Parris notes. “What I changed made that a much more streamlined process. My goal was to create a better self-service environment where we not only gave you the area to get your data from but also the training and the tools to turn that data into information for yourself.”

In short, Parris’s team normalizes select data and provides associates with the access they need so that each team isn’t functioning with differing processes and tools.

“While I have my own centralized analytics group and we do a lot of work for other teams, there’s no way a centralized analytics group can actually solve the needs for a company that has over twenty-three thousand employees,” Parris explains. That’s because, naturally, Texas Health Resources has different departments with different priorities. So, training those departments while allowing them to build what they need has expanded the company’s ability to develop dashboards and have experts in their subjects build those interfaces.

As a result, Texas Health has gone from producing three major dashboards a year to twenty-five.

“That’s really expanded the ability for the rest of the organization to leverage data and analytics,” he says.

Another key project Parris has led has been the establishment of a data catalogue.

“If you have all these people working data, and everybody knows their area, we need to take that knowledge

across the organization and put it in one place so that when you have a new analyst come in, they’re not spending the first three months just figuring out where the data is and who owns it,” Parris explains. “We’re building all those elements into the data catalogue.”

His team has created one information hub for everyone who has touched Texas Health Resources: a Consumer 360 database. That provides a single point of reference for patients’ basic information—their name, address, and insurance type—as well as details about their experience at Texas Health Resources, such as whether they visited a physician, went to a clinic, or participated in an educational seminar.

“This allows us to be able to say, ‘What type of individuals are visiting our hospitals, or our clinics, or our urgent cares, or any touch point we have with them, and what is their journey through the system?’” Parris says. “Then, we can look at those consumer journeys at a group or individual level and be able to suggest, in the future, what is the next best action for that person.”

If someone is diagnosed with diabetes, for example, the system will recommend a course of action by suggesting they go to an educational clinic to learn more, or that they see an endocrinologist. The system also makes contact with the call center more effective by predicting which doctor the person will want to see or assessing whether there is a pattern to their appointment scheduling.

“All those things are items we’re building through the 360 to recommend personalized orchestration for you

as an individual when you visit Texas Health, and eliminate a lot of the pain points for patients,” Parris notes.

Parris’s experiences as a patient have influenced his dedication to his work. When he was thirty-one, he received a surprising diagnosis for kidney cancer, which usually doesn’t develop until patients are in their fifties. The doctor ordered a CT scan, despite Parris thinking the problem was in his appendix.

“What that tells me is, as good as I am at predicting and guessing . . . you have to allow physician preference and patient choice when it comes right down to it,” Parris says.

He adds that consumer choice has to be a factor in healthcare, depending on each patient’s willingness to pay for procedures or his or her concern for specific areas of their health. “I expect that kind of thinking to dominate the future,” he says. “People are going to have options.” AHL

“We can look at those consumer journeys at a group or individual level and be able to suggest, in the future, what is the next best action for that person.”

Healers Who Lend a Helping Hand

Insight into the unique ways companies give back to their communities

New York-Presbyterian Hospital created a three-year community service plan, starting in 2019, to address disparities in NYC’s most vulnerable populations. The main goals are to prevent risk of chronic disease, promote better maternal and women’s health, promote holistic wellbeing, end substance abuse disorders, and reduce HIV and HCV diagnoses.

Source: nyp.org

The American Electric Power Foundation provides grants to charitable initiatives in communities AEP serves. The foundation focuses on improving lives through STEM education; meeting needs in emergency shelter, affordable housing, and hunger elimination; and supporting efforts to help the environment and enhance health and safety. The foundation also supports initiatives that celebrate art, music, and cultural heritage.

Source: aep.com

The AmerisourceBergen Foundation is a separate, not-for-profit entity that funds programs that educate and provide healthcare access to Amerisource’s communities. The foundation focuses on addressing opioid misuse through creating safe disposal sites and providing prevention education, in addition to promoting access to animal and human healthcare and scholastic support.

Source: amerisourcebergen.com

Krispy Kreme gives back by partnering with SeriousFun Children’s Network, a global community of camps and programs for children with serious illnesses. The organization strives to allow these children opportunities to discover joy, build confidence, and meet friends free of charge.

In 2020, Krispy Kreme supported SeriousFun as they created innovative, virtual programs so campers could be afforded these experiences despite having to stay home.

Source: krispykreme.com

Highmark Inc. has made volunteer work a decades-long tradition. In 2019, Highmark employees logged over 67,000 volunteer hours in their local communities. In addition to participating in the annual United Way Day of Caring, the company also offers an extra paid day off for volunteer work and access to YourCause, an online database that tracks volunteer hours and sorts opportunities based on location and interest.

Source: highmarkhealth.org

In addition to offering event sponsorship and charitable contributions to nonprofit organizations, Texas Health Resources offers its part-time and full-time employees a paid day off to volunteer in the community. Texas Health also partnered with the Blue Zones Project to donate $87,000 for playground and fitness equipment to help transform one of Fort Worth’s oldest inner-city neighborhoods.

Source: texashealth.org

People & Companies

Elevating patient care

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Enabling healthcare to transform to a continuum of care for better patient experience, ePlus makes technology mean more for healthcare.

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