Here are the finalists in the 2014 Health Care Heroes Health Care Executive category.
Honors an individual whose job performance is considered exemplary by people within their organizations, peers and community members.
Jack Barto
TITLE: President and CEO
ORGANIZATION: New Hanover Regional Medical Center
WHAT THE NOMINATOR SAID: “In 10 years at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, Jack Barto has changed the culture of the hosptial, focusing on quality, patient-centered care and improved patient experience.
Under Jack’s leadership, NHRMC has become an industry leader in many key quality metrics, to include reductions in inpatient mortality, hospital-acquired infections, patient falls and preventable 30-day readmissions.
Jack began NHRMC on a Service Excellence journey shortly after he began, and the medical center is now typically among the top quartile in the nation on most patient experience measures. The company NHRMC used to guide its Service Excellence efforts inducted Jack into its Hall of Fame, based on the success at NHRMC.
Jack has also focused on employee and physician satisfaction, and today turnover rates at NHRMC are well below state averages for hospitals. Shortly after he arrived, Jack recognized that NHRMC needed additional space to meet growing demand. His team led a project to build a new Women’s & Children’s hospital, a new Surgical Pavilion and a renovation of the patient tower that created all private patient rooms. These building projects generated about $250 million into the local economy without any cost to taxpayers.”
John Devaney
TITLE: Executive director
ORGANIZATION: Cape Fear Clinic
WHAT THE NOMINATOR SAID: “Fortunately for the medically underserved in our region, healthcare executive John Devaney became Executive Director of the then-Tileston Clinic in April 2010, bringing over 20 years of experience in non-profit healthcare and human services.
Under his leadership, the clinic has evolved to better serve our patients. The successful actions include: Identification as Cape Fear Clinic (CFC) to better represent the community we serve.
The clinic has grown from one-night-a-week, ‘first-come, first-served’ free clinic in the basement of the historic Tileston Building at St. Mary Catholic Church in 1991 to what is now a full-time, five-days-a-week volunteer-supported practice in a three-building campus on Doctors Circle; service area expansion to a four-county region; an increase in staff from 7 to 12, and tripling the number of medical providers; a boost in annual foundation support and an almost doubling of the clinic's budget.
Just like other health care leaders, Mr. Devaney has had to do more with less. CFC will only become more important as a health care provider in the months and years to come. With his leadership and the help of our partners, we are ready for the future.”
Lydia Newman
TITLE: Executive director
ORGANIZATION: Community Care of Lower Cape Fear
WHAT THE NOMINATOR SAID: “Lydia Newman, M.P.P., is the Executive Director of Community Care of the Lower Cape Fear (CCLCF), a position she has held since CCLCF was started in 2003.
The CCLCF team takes a holistic approach to patient needs, reinforcing the provider’s plan of care and addressing all barriers that may cause a patient to return to the hospital unnecessarily. Ms. Newman and the CCLCF staff's tireless dedication have touched the lives of tens of thousands of Medicaid, privately insured and uninsured recipients, both adults and children, in our six-county region and across the state.
Ms. Newman serves on the board of directors of Community Care of North Carolina, and helps provide guidance to the agency’s care management, analytics and clinical programs. She is the co-founder (with Scott Whisnant) and current Chair of the Board of Cape Fear HealthNet, the local non-profit safety-net organization dedicated to increasing access to care and improving health outcomes for the uninsured.
Since 2008, Ms. Newman has served as a board member and/or Vice Chair of Coastal Connect Health Information Exchange.”
