National Womens Health Week
Denise Lew, FACHE
Specialist Leader
Deloitte Consulting: Government and Public Service Human Capital Organizational Transformation
Ms. Denise Lew is a Specialist Leader in Deloitte Consulting’s Government and Public Service Human Capital Organizational Transformation offering. She supports projects primarily for the Military Health System, focusing on healthcare quality, patient safety, performance improvement, and strategy projects as a subject matter expert. Prior to joining Deloitte in 2011, she spent 26 years in the United States Air Force as a healthcare administrator, providing health plan contract oversight and leading hospital and clinic operations to deliver health care services to military beneficiaries in the US and abroad. Ms. Lew is actively involved in mentoring young healthcare executives, consultants, and transitioning military veterans.
“This organization has both a CEO and a janitor. If one of us doesn’t show up three days in row, which one do you think the organization will miss?”Dana Weston heard those words from her father, Ronald, when she was a girl helping him clean buildings. Now, Weston is the president and chief executive officer of UNC Rockingham Health Care, which includes a 108-bed, community hospital and a 121-bed skilled nursing facility in Eden, North Carolina. Her father’s advice continues to inform her leadership style and the value she places on everyone in her organization.“Every single person that’s here is critical to patient outcomes,” Weston says. “Growing up cleaning buildings with my dad was one of the things that made me a much better leader.”Originally from St. Louis, Weston, who is 36, took the helm of Morehead Memorial Hospital in 2015. She led the hospital through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy that resulted in a partnership with the nationally acclaimed UNC Health Care system. It also preserved the rural community’s largest employer.UNC Health Care immediately tapped Weston to be president and CEO of the hospital that was renamed UNC Rockingham Health Care. Her leadership skills have not been overlooked. A fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, Weston was recently named Young Healthcare Executive of the Year by the National Association of Health Service Executives (NAHSE). She’s become an advocate for rural healthcare and a sought-after public speaker across North CarolinaThroughout her career, Weston’s youth, gender and race have placed her in the minority, a role she’s adjusted to by being flexible, building relationships and keeping the focus on the things people share. For Weston, those relationship-building opportunities don’t happen behind a desk.“From an early age, many of us have been told that we have to be twice as good to get ahead,” says Weston. “So we’re in our offices trying to do that, and we miss the opportunity to form relationships.“When promotions come along, it’s not solely talent that’s being discussed; it’s the fact that we (diverse executives) really haven’t connected with anybody,” she says. “It’s often the folks who are forming relationships over dinner or on the golf course who are being tapped for the next opportunity.”Building relationships, finding mentors and using sites like the EDC Navigator help close gaps that many qualified, diverse executives experience, she adds.“The way the Navigator is set up, it outlines four focus areas: knowing yourself, mastering your job, leveraging relationships and gaining visibility,” she says. “The Navigator is the ‘FUBU’ of career sites: It’s for us and by us. It’s not people who haven’t experienced the journey trying to tell you what it’s like to be a minority in an executive world. It’s people who have lived it. That’s what makes it useful and different.”
Sally A. Hurt-Deitch, RN, FACHE
Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Patient Care Services
Tenet Health
El Paso, TX
Sally Deitch serves as chief nursing officer (CNO) and vice president, patient care services for Tenet. She is accountable for professional nursing practice, education, and quality, patient experience and performance excellence for the entire system.
Along with the patient care services team, Sally helps ensure achievement of the highest possible standards of clinical effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and patient, physician and staff satisfaction. She has significant responsibility for process refinement and models of care, patient safety, and patient satisfaction, as well as for professional nursing practice, nursing strategic plan development and implementation, and care strategy alignment with all disciplines.
Prior to this, Sally served as Group CEO for Tenet’s El Paso and Rio Grande Valley hospitals, and CEO of The Hospitals of Providence (THOP), where she was responsible for the strategic, operational and clinical activities of the five-hospital system. Prior to serving as CEO for the system, she served as CEO for the system’s East Campus and COO for the market in 2008.
Prior to joining Tenet, Sally served as CEO of Oklahoma University Medical Center Edmond. Previously, she held multiple administrative positions with Hospital Corporation of America, including CNO and COO.
Sally earned a master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of Texas at El Paso, a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from Trinity University and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Texas at El Paso.
She has been recognized with many awards, including being named one of healthcare’s 10 Women Leaders to Watch by Modern Healthcare, a recipient of the Corris Boyd Leadership Award by the American Federation of Hospitals, and a Distinguished Alumni by the University of Texas at El Paso – the first recipient of that honor from the College of Nursing. Sally also serves as president of the National Association of Latino Healthcare Executives, as a member of the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas–El Paso Branch, as the chair-elect of the Texas Hospital Association, and is a Regent-at-Large of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Commentary
Michelle L Edwards
System Vice President, Advanced Practice
Catholic Health Initiatives
Michelle L Edwards is the System Vice President for Advanced Practice at Catholic Health Initiatives where she provides strategic and operational leadership for care model redesign.
Dr. Edwards, a dual board-certified family and acute care nurse practitioner, leads and develops the health system’s strategy for implementation of system-wide, team-based, integrated clinical care models to achieve designated quality and financial outcomes through optimal utilization of APCs and effective deployment of each care team member. Prior to joining CHI, she was the Founder and Managing Director of PICC Health Institute LLC, a novel, NP-led primary care center for which she received numerous awards.
As a former clinical operations leader with Walgreens, she directed a new market launch for one of the leading convenient care clinic operators in the country, resulting in the opening and growth of 12 retail health centers. Dr. Edwards leverages a unique background as an experienced clinician and business leader to enhance service delivery in ways consumers want to receive it, allow better precision with predicting patient outcomes and ensure efficient use of limited human capital and financial resources.
Her extensive health care experience and progressive track record spans more than two decades in clinical practice, business and program development, public speaking, professional writing and consulting. Her commitment to clinical excellence, enthusiasm for innovation, inclination to challenge the status quo, and unique ability to build strong, collaborative, interdisciplinary partnerships has earned her a reputation as a leader in the industry. In October 2018, she was featured as the Leader to Watch by the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), becoming the first Advanced Practice leader to grace the cover of the organization’s journal.
Dr. Edwards is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP) and serves on the Board of the American Nurse Practitioner Foundation. She earned her Bachelors degree in nursing from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, her Masters degree from The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and her Doctorate from The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
Commentary
Rizan Mohsin, MHA
Project Manager
Stephenson Cancer Center
Oklahoma City, OK
Rizan Mohsin is a driven healthcare administration early careerist with valuable experience in academic medical centers, non-profit community health clinics and national and international associations. She currently manages operational, strategic and process improvement projects for Oklahoma’s only NCI designated cancer center, Stephenson Cancer Center and the OU Medicine Oncology Service Line.
Rizan values continuous learning, networking and volunteering in order to enhance the health and cultivate the success of her communities. She enjoys serving as a mentor for students across the country and is an active committee member with her local ACHE chapter. Rizan has served as a Stuart A. Wesbury Postgraduate Fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives and earned her Masters in Healthcare Administration from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.