Every health system leader has unprecedented executive management challenges facing their organization in the wake of the pandemic. During a recent virtual executive roundtable session hosted by the Healthcare Management Academy (HMA), which included the Baldrige Foundation co-hosts Dr. Roger Spoelman and Dr. Charles Peck as panelists, the discussion clarified the top challenges to overcome for health systems to “future proof” their organizations.

On this episode of “Leader Dialogue Radio”, Dr. Spoelman and Dr. Peck will unpack the audience voting from the HMA interactive executive round table, providing keen insight as to the prioritized problems-to-solve and considerations for addressing the challenges.

Roger Spoelman, DBA, MBA
Senior Advisor, Strategy, Leadership, and Innovation

Roger is a healthcare executive with more than 38 years of industry experience. He most recently served as interim CEO at Trinity Health Regional Systems in New England, Ohio, and Illinois at Loyola University Health System.

His tenure at Trinity Health included leading several hospital mergers, and later as regional executive for the corporation’s Mercy Health operations. He also is founder and executive sponsor of the Trinity Health Innovation Hub. In 2018, Roger oversaw the merger of International Aid Inc. and CURE International Inc., two organizations where he served on the Board of Directors for over a decade. He recently served as the President and CEO for CURE International Inc., which operates eight charitable hospitals in developing nations, and focuses on faith-based care that restores quality of life to pediatric patients with surgically treatable disabilities. Roger was appointed Chair of the BAMF Health board of directors in 2019. He is working closely with the company to achieve their patent-focused mission of bringing intelligence-based precision medicine to the world.

Roger is a co-host of the Baldrige Foundation Leader Dialogue program, and mentors and coaches’ numerous executives and assists organizations and their boards of directors with succession, strategy, and innovation.

Charles (Chuck) Peck, MD, FACS

Charles (Chuck) Peck is an internist and rheumatologist with more than 35 years of healthcare experience as a clinician, scientist, medical school faculty member, administrator, medical director, CEO, and partner in the global healthcare advisory company Guidehouse.

Chuck’s most recent projects include a $108M financial turnaround of a $2B integrated health system in the northeast leading to their affiliation with a leading academic health system. He was a member of President Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services transition team. Prior to joining Guidehouse, Chuck served as CEO of Piedmont Athens Regional Health System, on the board of Vizient Southern States, partner at a global healthcare consulting firm responsible for the clinical operations practice; CEO of a 150 physician group multi-specialty practice; president of the southeast and northeast regions of a large national health insurance carrier; chief medical officer of a start-up retail health clinic operator; chief medical officer/chief operations officer of a national disease management company; and CEO of an ambulatory surgery center and physician services company.

Chuck is a co-host of the Baldrige Foundation Leader Dialogue program and provides mentoring and thought leadership insights to numerous organizations and leaders across the country on a variety of operational, financial, and leadership topics.

Dr. Darin Vercillo, MD
Darin Vercillo co-founded ABOUT, drawing upon his expertise in developing and implementing medical information systems specifically designed to manage complex patient needs, medical education, and faculty and staff logistics. Darin provides clinical oversite and direction across all facets of ABOUT.

A board-certified hospitalist practicing in the Salt Lake City area, Darin also served as a clinical advisor and technical developer at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center. Previously to his work at ABOUT, Darin served as a physician knowledge engineer and interim Chief Medical Officer at TheraDoc.

Ben Sawyer, MBA, PT, OCS, LBB

Ben Sawyer is an ABOUT executive. He has more than 35 years of industry experience, most recently serving as CEO of SOAR Vision Group, and EVP of Care Logistics.

Ben started his healthcare career in 1985 as a Physical Therapist, focusing on sports medicine and orthopedics, and received his specialist certification as an Orthopedic Clinical Specialist (OCS) in 1997 from the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties.

After securing his MBA, he moved into hospital administration, overseeing rehab, wellness, cardiac therapy, and occupational medicine services, specializing in team development and performance optimization. This expanded into a system leadership role overseeing performance and quality improvement. During that time Ben achieved his Lean Black Belt certification (LBB)

Ben has a gift for recognizing strategic gaps that can be turned into opportunities. For example, during the COVID-19 crisis he initiated national executive roundtables with the Baldrige Foundation via the Leader Dialogue program to help executives turn the pandemic disruption into an opportunity for improved collaboration and performance towards true Community Health beyond the walls of hospitals and to prioritize and coordinate action and resources.