Are you a healthcare management professional who wants to demonstrate your commitment to your healthcare career?

The ACHENTX Advancement Committee announces our 2023 Board of Governors Exam Review Course. This course is designed to support our members on the path to achieving FACHE designation. This program will provide the opportunity to learn from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on how to successfully pass the BOG exam and will include exam drills.

If you have been putting off beginning the process to achieve FACHE designation, we invite you to register today.

BOG Review Session (All Knowledge Areas)

Date and Time: Friday, May 19, 2023, from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM

Location: Texas Health Harris Methodist Hurst-Euless-Bedford
1600 Hospital Parkway
Bedford, TX 76022

Review of all BOG Knowledge Areas by SMEs

o Healthcare

o Management, Leadership and Business

o Finance

o Human Resources

o Quality

o Healthcare Technology and Information Management

o Governance and Organizational Structure

o Professionalism and Ethics

o Laws and Regulations

Register Here

Subject Matter Experts’ Bios:

Healthcare

Lee Ann Benson serves as the Senior Vice President of Maternal-Child Program Development for Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Joint Pediatric Enterprise (JPE). In this role, Lee Ann is responsible for leading strategic planning, development and execution of the Maternal-Child Program including Maternal Fetal Medicine, Neonatology and Obstetrics.

Prior to joining Children’s Health in 2022, Lee Ann served as the Vice President of the East Valley Market for Phoenix Children’s.

Lee Ann graduated from Auburn University with a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration. Lee Ann earned a Master of Science in Health Administration and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Lee Ann is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. Outside of work, Lee Ann enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband Beau and 6-year old twins, Lynlee and Reid.

Laws & Regulation

Salma Khaleq is the Vice President of Commercial and Individual at Elevance Health, Inc. Salma’s passion for justice and equity work stems from her background as an immigrant to the United States and her experience seeing the harmful intersections of the immigration and criminal legal systems, along with her experience as a healthcare professional concerned about solutions to structural determinants of health.

Prior to joining Elevance Health, Salma was a former lawyer and held several Vice President roles at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois.

Health Information Technology (HIT)

Nick Kagal served as the Vice President of Marketing & Business Development and is now the leader of Client Success for SpinSci Technologies, a healthcare technology solutions provider focused on driving patient engagement. Nick previously led Customer Success for the Western United States for Premier Inc.’s Performance Services division supporting informatics solutions and services focused on cost, quality, and safety. He has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry and has held leadership roles with several Dallas/Fort Worth health systems including Parkland Health & Hospital System, HCA, and HealthSouth.

Nick received his BA in Biology & Psychology from Austin College and an MBA from Texas A&M University. He is a Fellow in both the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and is a board member of DFW HIMSS. Nick lives in Plano, Texas, and is an avid sports fan, a weekend warrior athlete, a long-distance cyclist, and plays guitar & bass in the local cover band Sonic Dissonance.

Finance

April Audain has been with Parkland Health for a decade. In her current role she is VP Finance. She oversees two teams: one that handles the financial administration of the Medical Services Agreement (MSA) between UT Southwestern and Parkland and the second Financial Planning & Analytics. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin, where she majored in Biology and also holds a degree in Healthcare Administration from Texas Woman’s University. She has worked in healthcare finance for almost twenty years and has been an active member of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) on various committees and a Fellow for over a decade.

Human Resources

Merridth D. Simpson is the Assistant Vice President of Human Resources for Cook Children’s Health Care System. Serving the community for more than 100 years, the non-profit is comprised of nine companies and over 9,000 employees. Merridth has system-wide responsibility and oversight for the Employee Relations, Talent Acquisition and Occupational Health divisions. She partners with the organization to provide consultative support and counsel, and aligns HR strategies with system needs to enhance business outcomes.

Merridth previously served as Director of Human Resources for Methodist Charlton Medical Center, part of the non-profit Methodist Health System. She oversaw programs and policies covering talent acquisition, compensation, benefits, employee relations, performance management, leadership development and compliance with federal and state employment laws. She also served on the health system’s Intentional Inclusion & Diversity (II&D) Council, and Best Southwest Workforce committee.

Prior to Methodist, Merridth served as the Diversity and Inclusion Manager at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where she led the strategic development and implementation of the Institution’s diversity and inclusion strategy, impacting 15,000 faculty and staff. Merridth ensured that diversity, equity and inclusion were essential components of the Institution’s core missions of research, education, and patient care, and implemented the Institution’s first Business Resource Groups (BRGs).

Before joining UT Southwestern, Merridth held leadership roles spanning communications, human resources and diversity at Raytheon, an aerospace and defense contractor, in their Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS) business segment.

While at Raytheon Merridth handled workforce planning of nearly 3,000 engineers, scientists and technical professionals. She spearheaded community outreach efforts in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), grew the maturity of nine Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), and steered multiple diversity councils.

Merridth is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management, Society for Diversity and National Association of Health Services Executives. She serves on the Greater Dallas Advisory Board of the Texas Diversity Council, and previously served on the Board of Management for the Lakewest YMCA of Dallas.

Governance & Organizational Structure

Marva Goins, PharmD, MBA, DPLA, FACHE is currently the Pharmacy Director for Texas Health Harris Methodist Southwest Fort Worth and Texas Health Hospital Clearfork in Fort Worth, TX. She has been in this role since December 2013. Marva’s career is marked by continuous growth and expansion of responsibilities. Prior to joining Texas Health Resources, she served in pharmacy leadership at Baylor Scott & White (formerly Baylor Healthcare System), and a several years as a clinical pharmacist in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Baylor University Medical Center Dallas, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Driscoll Childrens Hospital (Corpus Christi, TX), and staff Clinical Pharmacist at Doctors Regional Medical Center (Corpus Christi, TX) and William Beaumont Hospital (Royal Oak, Michigan).

Her commitment to the healthcare professions is demonstrated in her role as a Pharmacy Student Preceptor (Pharmacy Administration)for University of North Texas Health Science Center College of Pharmacy and University of Texas Austin. Marva is an active member of ACHE of North Texas serving on the Advancement Committee. As a Fellow of ACHE, she is honored to encourage and support the advancement of future ACHE fellow through her work on the Advancement Committee.

Marva earned a Doctor of Pharmacy from Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy, a Masters of Business Administration Healthcare Management New England College in New Hampshire, Diplomat of Pharmacy Leadership from American Society of Health System Pharmacist (ASHP) Foundation. She, also, completed an ASHP accredited Pharmacy Practice Residency at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Milwaukee, WI.

Quality

Brenda Slade MSN, MHA, RN-BC, CPHQ
Director, Quality, Patient Safety & Risk Management
Texas Health Resources Harris Methodist Hospital – Hurst-Euless-Bedford

Brenda’s education includes a Master of Nursing and a Master of HealthCare Administration. As a registered nurse for 28 years her clinical practice focused on the care of acute care medical-surgical patients. She has held nursing leadership roles including Administrative Supervisor, Nurse Manager and Director of Nursing prior to transitioning into Quality, Patient Safety and Risk Management. Currently Brenda serves as the Director of Quality, Patient Safety and Risk Management for Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford where she supports the team charged with helping hospital leaders and staff in their ongoing quality and patient safety work as well as on their journey to high reliability. When not at work Brenda enjoys spending time with her family, dogs, and serving the community as a member of the board of directors for Taylor’s Dream, a non-profit supporting child living with childhood cancer.

Professionalism & Ethics

Javier Montemayor is an accomplished Healthcare Executive with 20+ years of experience in regulatory compliance. He brings expertise in risk ranking, avoidance, and mitigation; managing quality procedures, practices and processes; contributing to patient safety through departmental regulatory assessments; credentialing; managing human resources; training and education; budget planning; and strategic planning for healthcare facilities.

As the Division Ethics and Compliance Officer for North Texas HCA Facilities and Rapides Regional Medical Center – Louisiana – HCA Healthcare is one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare services with 182 hospitals and 2,300+ sites of care, including surgery centers, freestanding ERs, urgent care centers, home health, and physician clinics located in 20 states and the United Kingdom. Javier oversees the implementation and direction in 14+ hospitals, in two states, the HCA Corporate Compliance Program. Responsible for leading and/or providing guidance to the Facility Ethics and Compliance Officers in the day-to-day activities related to Ethics and Compliance, Privacy, ADA, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

This followed his time at Children’s Health one of the largest pediatric non-profit health systems in the U.S., where Javier was the Senior Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer leading the Corporate Compliance Program and maintained strategic oversight of seven additional departments. He was responsible for Accreditation and Regulatory Affairs activities at the system level for three hospitals – a 490-bed pediatric academic hospital, a 72-bed community/academic pediatric hospital and a 39-bed specialty hospital; system-wide accreditation programs that included readiness of more than 52 ambulatory clinics; eight disease-specific certificated programs; and Internal Audit, Privacy, Emergency Management, Environmental Safety, Occupational Health and Policy Administration. In this role, he ensured policies and procedures, licensing, governmental and other regulatory body requirements were consistently maintained, and all areas of operations were patient-ready and in compliance with state and federal regulations. He also served as the system COVID-19 Incident Commander. Earlier at Children’s Health, Javier worked his way from Director to Vice President, Accreditation, Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Compliance.

Earlier in his career, Javier was at Texas Health Resources, one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit health systems in U.S. and the largest in North Texas in terms of inpatients and outpatients served, where Javier was Director of Quality Improvement – Presbyterian Hospital of Allen (TX). He was responsible for directing, managing and monitoring all Quality and Risk Management procedures and processes for a 62-bed hospital, including patient safety and department assessments. He provided administrative oversight to Case Management, Social Services, Guest Services and Volunteer Services Departments, and served as the hospital HIPAA/Compliance Security Officer and on the corporate Compliance/Privacy Committee. Prior to this at Texas Health Resources, Javier was Director of Quality Improvement Harris Methodist Erath County Hospital in Stephenville, TX, where he was responsible for managing and directing all Quality and Risk Management procedures and processes for a 98-bed hospital.

And the Facility Compliance Officer at Southwest General Hospital in San Antonio, TX, where he was responsible for Regulatory Compliance for a 286-bed hospital, including reviewing all compliance activities, employee-related issues, conflicts of interest and patient confidentiality.

Javier earned a Master of Jurisprudence in Health Law at Loyola University Chicago, a Master of Business Administration in Health Care Management at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from Texas A&M University. He was in the Class of 2017 for Dallas Regional Chamber’s Leadership Dallas program and completed a certification in Dispute Resolution at Southern Methodist University in University Park, TX. He is Just Culture certified, as well as certified in Health Care Compliance.

“The time is now or never to make a difference in today’s society; we all face difficult apprehensions and live through them but learning from them is what makes us better.”

Leadership, Management & Business

Dr. Matt Richardson was appointed as the Director of Public Health for Denton County in the summer of 2014. Dr. Richardson previously served as Director with the City of Amarillo and Potter/Randall Counties for 9 years. Dr. Richardson has authored peer-reviewed publications, testified to the Texas Legislature regarding public health issues and continues to advocate for public health practice and resources for Denton County and the state of Texas.

He has a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Abilene Christian University and both Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Public Health from the University of North Texas. He is currently board certified and Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Dr. Richardson also serves as an accreditation site reviewer for public health programs in universities across the US.

Matt lives in Argyle with his wife of 27 years and their two daughters.

Register Here