Spectrum Health President & CEO Tina Freese Decker Named a 2019 Crain’s Health Care Hero

Award honors health care professionals who “go above and beyond”

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 4, 2019 – Crain’s Detroit Business has named Spectrum Health President & CEO Tina Freese Decker a 2019 Health Care Hero.

According to the award announcement, Crain’s Health Care Heroes “honors health care professionals who go above and beyond to change the lives of their patients, their institutions and the communities they serve for the better.”

Freese Decker was named in the Executive category and joins 10 other health care professionals in five categories including Allied Health, Corporate Achievement, Innovation, Physician and Executive.

An article in Crain’s Detroit Business accompanying the award announcement points to several recent Spectrum Health achievements that have taken place under Freese Decker’s leadership and direction:

In 2017, Spectrum Health and Priority Health developed a home-based primary care program intended to help seniors stay longer in their homes. Over the last two years, Priority Health has saved $9,000 per person, or 40 percent of annual care costs, by identifying patients who are most likely to be admitted as in-patients and making sure they receive case management services.
Last year, Spectrum Health’s Comprehensive Stroke Center, one of the largest in the state, exceeded national standards in eight of nine categories, including attaining 93 percent in the critical “door-to-needle time of less than 60 minutes” category. The national average is about 66 percent.
To address rising drug costs, earlier this year Spectrum became one of seven founding members of the Civica Rx generic drug company, a Salt Lake City-based generic drug company.
Over the past decade, Spectrum’s Strong Beginnings community partnership with several health organizations has helped to cut infant mortality by 28 percent with more than 4,000 families served. The partnership includes Spectrum Health, the Kent County Health Department, Cherry Health and Metro Health Community Clinic.

This year’s winners include:

Executive Category: Tina Freese Decker, President & CEO, Spectrum Health and Ewa Matuszewski, CEO and Co-Founder, MedNetOne Health Solutions
Allied Health Category: Danielle Bastien, Registered Nurse, Henry Ford Hospital, Kathleen Grobbel, Child Life Supervisor, Beaumont Health and Philip Muccio, President and Founder, AxioBionics
Corporate Achievement Category: Richard Boothman, Owner and Principal, Boothman Consulting and Lenora Hardy-Foster, President and CEO, Judson Center
Innovation Category: Thomas Forbes, Pediatric Cardiologist; Director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Adele Myszenski, Physical Therapy Supervisor, Henry Ford Health System
Physician Category: Elisabeth Heath, Associate Center Director of Translational Sciences, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Richard Keidan, Surgical Oncologist, Beaumont Health

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People are at the heart of everything we do, and the inspiration for our legacy of outstanding outcomes, innovation, strong community partnerships, philanthropy and transparency. Corewell Health is a not-for-profit health system that provides health care and coverage with an exceptional team of 60,000+ dedicated people—including more than 11,500 physicians and advanced practice providers and more than 15,000 nurses providing care and services in 21 hospitals, 300+ outpatient locations and several post-acute facilities—and Priority Health, a provider-sponsored health plan serving more than 1.3 million members. Through experience and collaboration, we are reimagining a better, more equitable model of health and wellness. For more information, visit corewellhealth.org.

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