March 14, 2022
The Health Care Improvement Foundation is pleased to announce the election of five new members to its talented Board of Directors. The new Board members are Vanessa Benton, MBA, Michelle Burroughs, Ed.D., Joanne Craig, MS, Allison Hess, MBA, and Norman Weinstein, Esq. These new appointees represent several professional sectors and will bring a breadth of knowledge and experience to HCIF. Together, they will work to advance HCIF’s key initiatives with a focus on, clinical quality, patient safety, and population and community health.
“We are excited to welcome our new board members,” said Wendy Nickel, President, Health Care Improvement Foundation. “Each of them provides our board with a unique background and perspective and we look forward to their expertise and guidance this year, especially as we implement new strategic priorities, with a special emphasis on health equity.”
New Board Members:
Vanessa Benton, MBA is the Deputy Chief of School Planning and Space Management for The School District of Philadelphia, where she manages a strategic process to provide solutions to schools’ facility and utilization challenges.
Michelle Burroughs Ed.D. is the Vice President, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) at WSFS Bank. Dr. Burroughs has almost 20 years of experience in building and leading collaborative environments with a focus on diversity initiatives.
Joanne Craig, MS is the Chief Impact Officer at The Foundation for Delaware County, where she administers their public health programs and grant making services. Her work in public health, nonprofit management, and philanthropy spans several decades and has positively impacted tens of thousands of families in Delaware County.
Allison Hess, MBA is the Vice President of Health Innovations for Geisinger, which is one of biggest health services organizations in the country. Her work includes oversight and implementation of health and wellness programs as well as creating community based strategies that impact food insecurity and related social determinants of health.
Norman Weinstein, Esq. is Of Counsel at Galfand Berger, LLP and he has practiced Workers’ Compensation and Social Security law for over 36 years. The Secretary of Health for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recently appointed Mr. Weinstein to the Pennsylvania Department of Health Equity’s Advisory Committee, as he works towards building a relationship between public health and public interest law.
Additionally, new officers were recently elected to lead the Board for the next two years. Patricia Sullivan, PhD serves as the new Board Chair. She is the Chief Quality Officer at the University of Pennsylvania Health System where she is responsible for clinical effectiveness and quality improvement efforts. Natalie Levkovich, HCIF’s new Board Vice Chair, is Executive Director of the Health Federation of Philadelphia, a position she has held since 1987.
“I am deeply honored to have been elected to lead the HCIF Board of Directors. HCIF is uniquely qualified to support healthcare organizations in achieving better care, improved access, and health equity. I look forward to leveraging our partnerships, along with our talented and capable team, to achieve HCIF’s vision of healthier communities through equitable, accessible, and quality health care,” said Sullivan.
The Health Care Improvement Foundation (HCIF), hcifonline.org, was founded to support a responsive, coordinated health care delivery system that fulfills the needs of patients and consumers, and achieves better health. Through large-scale collaboration HCIF works with health systems, community based organizations, payors and a variety of other stakeholders to find solutions to complex healthcare challenges, which any one stakeholder could not achieve alone. Since its inception, HCIF has worked with numerous organizations to improve quality of care, health equity, patient safety, and population health issues such as, COVID-19, perinatal care, readmissions, cancer, workplace violence, food insecurity, trauma informed care, and health literacy.