Leadership Excellence Networks
(LENS)

This committee oversees the work of LENS and the various councils.

• Chair: Patti Adelman, Northwell Health
• Chris Newell, Boston Children’s Hospital
• Tara Wiedeman, Carilion Clinic
• Carlene Caldwell, Cone Health
• Jason Sheffer, Henry Ford Health System
• Marguerite Samms, Intermountain Healthcare
• Maura Walden, Johns Hopkins Medicine
• Erin Flanigan, Mass General Brigham
• Alice Leefers, Memorial Health
• Wes Siegal, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Diane Adams, Mount Sinai Health System
• Ken Broadhurst, NYU Langone Health
• Alice Wheeler, OhioHealth
• Teresa Oliszewicz, Rush University Medical Center
• Cori Sinnigen, Stanford Children’s Health

Hospitals and health systems have a responsibility to ensure a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for their employees and patient communities. Underrepresentation of minorities within health systems, equitable care, and building a sense of community throughout the neighborhoods that the health system serves are some of the challenges that need to be met to eradicate these disparities. The Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Council works to identify best practices to continue erasing these disparities and racial inequities in healthcare by:

1. Working to ensure the health of the community that the organization serves, through health equity programs, community partnerships, and employment opportunities
2. Supporting staff and raising consciousness around racial and social injustice movements
3. Peer-sharing and learning opportunities among member organizations

Today’s healthcare organizations recognize the need to develop the next generation of leaders to respond to the challenges of volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments. The Leadership Development Council focuses efforts on:

1. Leadership coaching – providing opportunities for coach certification and continued education
2. Peer-sharing of health system approaches to leadership development
3. Education on leadership development best practices
4. Opportunities to engage in research to advance the pragmatic practice of healthcare leadership

With personnel expenses often exceeding 50% of total health system operating costs, effectively measuring, predicting, and managing talent needs is essential to the successful pursuit of high-value care. The Talent Metrics, Analytics, & Planning Council focuses on:

1. Sharing experiences with specific approaches to talent metrics and analytics, identifying areas of need, and looking for alternative approaches
2. Strengthening capabilities for assessing future workforce needs
3. Discussions on the latest literature surrounding people analytics and talent acquisition

Leaders increasingly recognize how important staff well-being is to organizational success. However, there are few clear practice guidelines to inform organization-level efforts, and there is tremendous variation of practice across organizations. Even the definition of well-being can vary widely across organizations, making identifying successful practices all the more difficult. Launching in 2021, the primary goal of the Well-being Council is to help organization leaders make more informed decisions about how to invest their limited resources for maximum well-being impact. The Council-driven agenda will focus on gaining clarity in several areas, including:

1. Focus/philosophy: how health systems are defining well-being, and their approaches to it for different groups (e.g., physicians, clinicians, staff)
2. Organizational structures/staffing: how health systems are organizing their well-being activity
3. Outcomes: developing greater consensus on what/how to measure the impact
4. Education/implementation: accelerating dissemination of new learnings regarding items (1) – (3) and supporting the adoption of emerging best-practice guidelines broadly across the field