2022 Power Players in Health Care

Stephen B. Hanse, Esq., serves as president and CEO of the New York State Health Facilities Association/New York State Center for Assisted Living. NYSHFA/NYSCAL is a statewide association of over 450 providers of long-term care services, caring for individuals of all ages in proprietary, not-for-profit, and government-sponsored skilled nursing, post-acute, rehabilitation, adult care, and assisted living communities across New York.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in health care?
It’s been said that you make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give. Access to quality health care is essential for all New Yorkers and it’s truly a privilege to be able to give time and effort in a career where the focus is advancing solutions to ensure access to quality health care.

What is the biggest challenge currently facing New York’s health care system?
The two biggest challenges facing New York’s health care system include the long-term care workforce recruitment and retention crisis the state is facing and New York’s inadequate Medicaid financing for long-term care.

How can New York State ensure access to affordable health care?
New York needs to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for skilled nursing and assisted living providers to ensure sufficient access to care throughout New York State. At $56 per patient per day, New York has one of the largest shortfalls between the cost of care of a Medicaid resident in a nursing home and what the State reimburses providers for long-term care.

What does the future of health care look like?
With the aging baby boomer generation, the future of health care in New York must focus additional resources on ensuring adequate access to long-term care services. These services include sufficient access to care in both skilled nursing and assisted living settings.

Georgana Hanson serves as the interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts, where she was formerly the vice president of public policy and regulatory affairs. PPESA is the independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that represents Planned Parenthood in New York. In her role, Georgana responds to the policy and regulatory needs of PPESA’s membership and leads the organization’s legislative efforts to protect and advance the reproductive and sexual health rights of all New Yorkers. 

Why did you decide to pursue a career in health care?
From a young age I have had a real connection to reproductive health and rights advocacy. I remember reading my mother’s Our Bodies, Ourselves and feeling inspired by the power and agency knowledge of bodies and health provides.

What is the biggest challenge currently facing New York’s health care system?
The biggest challenge is securing a meaningful investment in primary and preventative health care that addresses unacceptable inequities in our health care system.

How can New York State ensure access to affordable health care?
Creating a system that is centered on patient needs and access.

What does the future of health care look like?
The future of health care should look like equity, a system truly rooted in being responsive to the whole person, and their health care needs.

Brett Harris, DrPH, is president of the New York State Public Health Association, the leading association of public health professionals in New York State with 500+ members. Dr. Harris is also a clinical associate professor at the University at Albany School of Public Health and a senior research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago, where she specializes in substance use and suicide prevention and directs multiple grants and contracts that bring behavioral health programs, services, and resources to communities in New York State and nationally.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in health care?
I decided to pursue a career in health care following my father’s death when I was 12. At that point, I wanted to be a doctor to save people like him. I entered college pre-med but, when I learned about public health, I knew that was my career path. I realized there were many missed opportunities for prevention with my father and decided it was my mission to make an impact on a larger scale.

What is the biggest challenge currently facing New York’s health care system?
One of the biggest challenges currently facing New York’s health care system is the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicide risk have risen and, while utilization of mental health treatment has increased, significant barriers remain. Mental health greatly impacts physical health, which is likely to increase both morbidity and mortality. Health system administrators will have to figure out how to effectively integrate behavioral health care for maximum impact.

What does the future of health care look like?
The future of health care is integrated care. All primary care patients should be screened for substance use, depression, anxiety, and suicide risk and receive brief interventions and referrals to specialty care when necessary. The evidence-based models SBIRT and Zero Suicide provide a standardized process for delivering these services. Health care providers should also inform their patients about free 24/7 resources like the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and Crisis Text Line for mental and emotional distress.

Robert Hayes has served as president and CEO of Community Healthcare Network since 2015. CHN is a federally qualified health center in New York City, providing integrated care to 85,000 patients annually. Mr. Hayes has deep experience in leading mission-driven organizations. Mr. Hayes founded the National and New York Coalitions for the Homeless, winning the nation’s first Right to Shelter court ruling. Mr. Hayes also served as president of the Medicare Rights Center and as senior vice president for health quality at Universal American Corp.

An internationally recognized researcher, CEO, corporate founder, author, and hematology and transfusion expert, Dr. Christopher Hillyer joined New York Blood Center in 2009 as president and chief executive officer. Dr. Hillyer currently also serves as chief scientific officer and distinguished scientist at NYBC’s Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute and as professor, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College. Under his leadership, NYBC has doubled in size, revenues, and assets through mergers and acquisitions, organic growth, and the optimization of a full portfolio of specialized blood products and services.

Danielle Holahan was named executive director of New York State of Health, the state’s official health plan marketplace, in October 2021. Ms. Holahan has over 25 years of health policy experience at both the state and federal level, making her well-qualified to oversee one of most successful health care marketplaces in the country. New York State of Health enrolls over 6.3 million people, and it has played a critical role in decreasing the number of uninsured New Yorkers. As executive director, Ms. Holahan works to ensure that all New Yorkers can access affordable, quality health care.

Karen Ignagni serves as chief executive officer for the EmblemHealth family of companies. She protects access to quality care for working families and small and large businesses through EmblemHealth, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health insurers with an over 80-year legacy of serving New Yorkers. Under her leadership, she has also enhanced a network of community-based primary and specialty physician practices — AdvantageCare Physicians and BronxDocs — serving half a million patients throughout New York City and Long Island. Karen also heads leading Connecticut health plan ConnectiCare as well as WellSpark, a national wellness company focused on bridging the gap between physical and mental wellness.

Pat Kane, RN, CNOR, is a longtime member and leader of NYSNA. She has served as NYSNA’s executive director since April 2020, and prior to that served as NYSNA director at large and as union treasurer. Pat began her career as a nurse at Staten Island University Hospital/Northwell Health and has been active in her North Shore Staten Island community for decades. Pat has been a committed voice in the fight to address disparities in access to care, in advocating for quality care, community engagement, and social and economic justice.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in health care?
I enjoyed studying life sciences and was very social as a child. A career in health care offered many varied opportunities in different fields of specialty and I knew I’d find one that suited me.

What is the biggest challenge currently facing New York’s health care system?
Access and inequity. I believe everyone should have access to quality health care. There’s so much profit in this sector, but it is not being reinvested in delivery of services.

How can New York State ensure access to affordable health care?
By passing the Medicare for All Act, HR 1976, to create a single-payer system — expanded and improved Medicare coverage from birth. On a state level, we should start with the New York Health Act.

What does the future of health care look like?
I think there will be more emphasis on public and community health coming out of the pandemic. Virtual access to providers will continue to expand. Unless there is major reform with reimbursement and insurance, there will be more closures of smaller community urban and rural safety net facilities and consolidation of health systems will continue.

Dr. Stuart D. Katz is the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel professor of advanced cardiac therapeutics in the Leon H. Charney Division of Cardiology at NYU Langone Health and principal investigator for the NYU Clinical Science Core of the RECOVER initiative, the nation’s largest study of long-COVID funded by the National Institutes of Health. The RECOVER initiative will enroll tens of thousands of children and adults from all 50 states to better understand the causes of long COVID and to develop new approaches for diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Richard Koplin has been a board-certified ophthalmologist for more than 40 years and a longtime resident doctor at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Along with Dr. Paul Lee, Dr. Douglas Buxton, Dr. Ron Gentile, and with Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, he is working to preserve and protect the 200-year old specialty hospital New York Eye and Ear Institute from being disassembled by Mount Sinai.

Why did you decide to pursue a career in health care?
I am from a long line of physicians. My grandfather and father were both MDs and my grandfather was, as well, an ophthalmologist in the first half of the 20th century. It’s genetic. As I was nearing the end of my college career I could sense this.

What is the biggest challenge currently facing New York’s health care system?
We are facing tumultuous times. The short answer is “follow the money.” There’s simply not enough funds to meet the needs of an aging and unhealthy population here in NYC. Access is a challenge and regulatory impediments to care are unconscionable in many cases. Nurses and physicians feel the system is disrespectful and has diminished them — many are leaving. There is much mismanagement and miscalculations as large, monolithic health care systems muscle their way.

How can New York State ensure access to affordable health care?
Large health care systems and elected officials are missing the boat. They must listen to the boots on the ground. A major issue is the diminishing need for expensive hospital-based medicine. Medicine is moving to community outpatient care, but large hospital systems can’t adapt, so we are paying a premium to support outdated delivery systems. Consider that hospitals often receive 2-3x the facility fee that a free-standing system receives; they are threatened by site-neutral reimbursement processes.

What does the future of health care look like?
Muddled. Medical technology and pharmaceuticals are outstripping our ability to pay for them. Medicine is an animal that has grown so large that it is outpacing its blood supply. The animal must be tethered and a more rational delivery system put in its place.