3.0 Face-to-Face Approved Credits for this Event (1.5 for each panel)

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Panel 1: The Healthcare Organization’s Role in Formulating Public Policy

Many of society’s most critical issues confront healthcare organizations daily. From access for the uninsured and underinsured, children and elder care initiatives, patient safety and Medicare and Medicaid changes, healthcare organizations must address myriad issues. In addition, healthcare must also deal with payer demands for cost containment and the growing expectation for transparency.

Moderator: Steve Love
President/CEO DFW Hospital Council

Panelists:

Josh Floren
President Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano

Doug Lawson
President/CEO Baylor University Medical Center

David Tessmer
Senior Vice President Texas Health Resources

Panel 2: Ethical Challenges in Healthcare Leadership

Ethical challenges arise in all aspects of healthcare and service from the bedside to the boardroom. Hospital leaders and boards set the ethical compass of the organization by making decisions about priorities, policies, and resource allocation as they determine the best ways to meet the needs of their communities, while respecting their staff and the populations they serve. Understanding the expanding paradigm of planning, creating, and maintaining an ethical healthcare organization is crucial to help identify strategies for implementing ethics initiatives within your own organization. Healthcare leaders must “walk the talk” and demonstrate their commitment to ethics throughout their organization.

Moderator: Scott Hurst

Panelists:

Becket Gremmels, PhD
System Director of Ethics, Mission Integration Department, CHRISTUS Health

J. Russell Hoverman, MD, PhD
VP-Quality Programs for Texas Oncology, P.A.
Medical Director-Managed Care for The US Oncology Network

Benjamin J. Retta, LMSW
Senior Director, Support Services, Children’s Medical Center Dallas

Jason Wren
President/CEO Wise Health System

A special thanks to T. Boone Pickens Hospice and Palliative Care Center for hosting this event!

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Speakers Bios:

Josh Floren, FACHE, serves as president of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano. Floren was promoted to president in spring of 2015 after serving as vice president of professional and support services beginning July 2013. In this role, he provided oversight for ancillary and support services, including radiology, rehabilitation, pharmacy, orthopedic joint program and nutrition services.

Floren was instrumental in the opening of the Texas Health Ben Hogan Concussion Center Plano and also the Texas Health Ben Hogan Sports Medicine Plano at Toyota Stadium in Frisco. Under his leadership, Texas Health Plano become the first hospital in North Texas to offer EOS, a low-dose, 3-D imaging technology that provides another advanced diagnostic option for patients. Prior to joining Texas Health Plano, Floren served as the vice president of operations at Parkland Health and Hospital System.

Floren holds a Bachelor of Science in biomedical science from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree in health administration from Washington University in St. Louis. Immediately following his postgraduate fellowship, he was certified by GE as a Six Sigma Black Belt.

An active proponent of the community, Floren is a member of Leadership Plano, Class 32, a program of the Plano Chamber of Commerce dedicated to educating, developing and empowering current and future leaders. He is also the past president of the North Texas Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives and was an advisory board member for both the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society.

Outside of work, Josh enjoys spending time with his wife, Valerie, and their three young children.

Becket Gremmels, PhD, is the System Director of Ethics for CHRISTUS Health based in Irving, Texas.  He has been with CHRISTUS since 2015.  Before that, he was the Executive Director of Ethics for Saint Thomas Health in Nashville and Saint Vincent’s Health Services in Birmingham.  He received his doctorate in bioethics from the Albert Gnaegi (guh-NAY-ghee) Center for Health Care Ethics at Saint Louis University.  He wrote his dissertation on the ethical limits of gene therapy.  He has been married for ten years; he and his wife have two sons, ages 6 and 4, and one daughter who is six months old.

Russell Hoverman, M.D. specializes in medical oncology and is board certified in internal medicine and hematology. Dr. Hoverman is currently the Vice President of Quality Programs for Texas Oncology, P.A. and is the Medical Director of Managed Care for The US Oncology Network. He also serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Council for the Austin Metro Unit of the American Cancer Society.

Medical degree in 1971 from Duke University; internship in medicine at Albany Hospital, Albany, New York 1971-1972; fellowship in hematology and oncology 1972-1973, and at Baylor Affiliated Hospitals, Dallas, Texas in 1977.

Scott Hurst, FACHE, was most recently with Children’s Health, starting with them in August 2013 as the Director of Network Outreach. In this role, he had direct oversight of the Physician Outreach and Physician Information teams, fiduciary oversight of multiple budgets and developmental responsibility for the integrated networks. In October of 2014, he shifted into a full-time management role over the Pediatric Partners integrated network in concert with physician leadership, legal counsel and compliance. Scott and his team of integrated network advisors were committed to seeing Pediatric Partners go from a conceptual idea to a world class group of over 350 pediatricians and pediatric specialists committed to raising quality and lowering cost while delivering an exceptional patient experience. This focus on the precepts of clinical integration resulted in a 12% point climb in performance against Well Child scores for 3-6 year old children between 2016 and 2015; along with the achievement of significant shared savings for members participating in an ACO product.

All told, Scott has spent the last 16 years working in the health care arena. Prior to joining Children’s Health, Scott worked with EmCare, the leading provider of emergency medicine services in the United States and with CHRISTUS Spohn Health System in Corpus Christi, TX.

Scott resides in Lantana, TX with his wife Lisa who is a department chair of special education at Guyer High School in Denton, TX. His stepson, Noah (21), is a student at University of North Texas and his daughter, Anelise (13), participates in dance, art and choir while enjoying the company of the two family Labrador retrievers, Amy and Kimmie.

Douglas Lawson serves as president of the Central Region of Baylor Scott & White Health – North Texas, where he is responsible for the leadership and management of Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Waxahachie and Baylor Jack & Jane Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital. The central region represents more than 42,000 annual hospital admissions, 227,000 outpatient visits and more than 156,000 emergency room visits.

Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas (Baylor Dallas) is a 952-bed not-for-profit academic medical center and is the f​lagship hospital of Baylor Scott & White Health – North Texas. Baylor Dallas is a nationally recognized leader in oncology; transplantation; digestive and hepatobiliary disease; cardiovascular and thoracic care; orthopedics; neuroscience; and women’s and children’s services.

Prior to becoming president, Lawson served Baylor University Medical Center for three years as chief operating officer where he facilitated the redesign of surgical registration and admissions processes, and improved key organizational metrics, including patient satisfaction and hospital acquired conditions. In addition, Lawson worked with the senior leadership team to develop a long-term plan to modernize the campus and transition more than 1,300 medical staff members and students, and 3,000 clinical staff, to a comprehensive electronic medical order entry system and clinical documentation system.

Lawson began his health care career as an administrative resident and later administrative coordinator for cancer and prevention care at Scott & White Memorial Hospital and Clinic. His knowledge and experience in running a comprehensive oncology program led to many accomplishments when managing other cancer programs, first at Northeast Louisiana Cancer Institute, and subsequently with the M.D. Anderson Cancer Network. Lawson later served as the president and chief executive officer of The Cancer Institute, LLC, a non-profit joint venture of Saint Luke’s Health System and Health Midwest in Kansas City, Missouri.

Successive accomplishments allowed Lawson to rise to a senior vice president and chief operating officer position at Cabell Huntington Hospital, a not-for-profit teaching hospital in Huntington, West Virginia, where he managed all ancillary, clinical and core hospital operations and infrastructure for three years. In 2007, Lawson returned to Texas and became president of Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine, now Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Grapevine. During a five-year tenure in Grapevine, his leadership facilitated a Magnet designation by the American Nurses Credentialing Center; the Texas Award for Performance Excellence (TAPE) by the Quality Foundation of Texas; a VHA Leadership award for patient care of MI and CHF; and significant gains in patient satisfaction, employee engagement, risk-adjusted mortality and operating income.

Lawson is a graduate of Texas A&M University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in political science. He went on to complete a Master of Science degree in health care administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a doctorate in philosophy from Dallas Baptist University. Lawson is also a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Stephen Love is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council which promotes collaboration, cooperation and advocacy on behalf of its 90 member hospitals. The Hospital Council also has approximately 100 Associate Members (business and industry), including prominent accounting, legal and consulting firms. The primary mission is to promote patient safety, quality healthcare and coordination in the delivery of healthcare within the North Texas market.  He served as 2015 Chair for the Conference of Metropolitan and Regional Hospitals Association in the United States.

Mr. Love currently serves on the American Hospital Association Regional Policy Board 7, the Policy Committee on Trauma and Emergency Services of the Texas Hospital Association, American Heart Association Board for Dallas Division, the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Education and Research Foundation Board of Directors, the School of Public Health , Master of Health Administration (MHA) Professional Advisory Committee for Texas A&M, Board of Directors for YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas, Texas, the North Texas Advisory Board for Children at Risk and the Board of Directors of Prism Health North Texas and Mothers Against Drunk Driving Dallas.  He is also a member of the University of Texas Arlington Health Care Administration Advisory Board.  He serves as an Ex-Officio Board Member for the North Texas Commission and on the Health System CEO Council for the Dallas Regional Chamber.  He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Cure Glaucoma Foundation.  Mr. Love served as the 2014 Chair for March for Babies for the March of Dimes in Dallas and Fort Worth, and currently serves as Chair for Healthy North Texas for the American Heart Association.  He serves on the Nursing Advisory Council for The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) School of Nursing and the Advisory Board for the North Texas Eye Research Institute.

Mr. Love has worked in healthcare management for over 40 years.  He has demonstrated leadership in tax exempt, investor-owned, specialty and private hospitals in operations, finance and corporate governance.

He began his healthcare career in 1975 at a 450 bed tax exempt facility located near Richmond, Virginia.  He has served in various capacities of healthcare management at the hospital, division and corporate levels.

Prior to joining the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, Mr. Love was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of a Fortune 500 healthcare company that owned over 50 hospitals and managed approximately 200 facilities in the United States.

Mr. Love graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1973 with a B.S. degree in Business Administration.  He and his wife Rebecca have been married for over 35 years and reside in Dallas, Texas.

Benjamin J. Retta, LMSW, is a lifelong resident of the Dallas area. Ben received his Bachelor of Social Work degree from North Texas State University (1983), and his Master of Science in Social Work degree from the University of Texas at Arlington (1998).  For the past 33 years he has worked as a social worker in the Dallas and Collin County communities. Ben has worked for the Salvation Army Social Service Center, CASA of Collin County and for 13 years at Child Protective Services.  Currently, Ben is the senior director of Support Services at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, where his has been employed since 1999.  In this capacity he oversees the Child Life, Language Access Services, Pastoral Care, Hospital School Services, Social Work and Volunteer Services departments at Children’s Health Dallas.  Ben has served on the ethics committee at Children’s Health Dallas for the past 17 years. Since 2009 Ben has served as the Children’s Health representative co-chair of the ethics committee.

David J. Tesmer, senior vice president of community engagement and advocacy, has more than 25 years of experience in public policy and stakeholder relations.  Joining Texas Health Resources in 1995, he is responsible for providing strategic direction and management in the areas of public policy, stakeholder relations, community health improvement and faith and spirituality integration.

Tesmer has held a variety of key leadership positions at the local, state and national level including serving as chair of the North Texas Commission and the Government Affairs Committee of Premier Inc. (Washington D.C).  He is also a member of the American Hospital Association’s Regional Policy Board.

He has been recognized by Premier, AHA and THA for his outstanding advocacy efforts by receiving the Excellence in Advocacy Award, Most Valuable PAC Player and HOSPAC Star Award.

Tesmer earned both his undergraduate degree in political science and master of public administration from Texas Tech University.

Jason Wren, President and Chief Executive Office of Wise Health System (“WHS”), joined WHS in 2013 as its General Counsel and, later, Vice President of Corporate and Legal Services.  He became President and CEO in April of 2017. Mr. Wren is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, as well as the American Health Lawyers Association and the Health Law sections of the Texas State Bar and the American Bar Association. Mr. Wren received his undergraduate degree in business administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law, and a Masters in Business Administration with a Health Services Management concentration from the University of North Texas.  Following law school, Mr. Wren served as a briefing attorney for the Supreme Court of Texas from 2000 to 2001. Mr. Wren is president of the Economic Development Corporation’s board of directors for the City of Decatur, Texas, and a former member of the City Council.

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