NEW ORLEANS (press release) – The American Hospital Association has elected eight new members to its Board of Trustees for three-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2021. The Board of Trustees is the highest policymaking body of the AHA and has ultimate authority for the governance and management of its directions and finances. Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Ochsner Health, was named as one of the new trustees.
Ochsner is the largest not-for-profit academic, multi-specialty health system in the state of Louisiana and encompasses 40 owned, managed or affiliated hospitals and specialty hospitals. Prior to his current role, he served as COO of Ochsner and COO of Ochsner Clinic Foundation.
Under Thomas’s leadership, Ochsner has expanded access to care in Louisiana and the Gulf South as well as become a national and global destination for healthcare. Ochsner Health is committed to supporting the growing and unique needs of the communities it serves and providing specialty services where and when patients need it. Some of this is accomplished in partnership with other strong healthcare organizations across the Gulf South and provides the opportunity for Ochsner to scale patient-centered technology and other solutions to bring advanced care closer to home.
Additionally, Ochsner has played a critical role since COVID-19 has impacted communities across the state of Louisiana and Mississippi over the past four months, providing care to nearly 20,000 community members in the outpatient setting and more than 4,000 inpatients.
Thomas is a member of the Louisiana Hospital Association board of directors, a former member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges Advisory Panel for Healthcare. He earned his bachelor’s degree from New Hampshire College and a master’s in business administration from Boston University.
Other board of trustee members include:
- Mary Beth Kingston, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, chief nurse officer at Advocate Aurora Health in Milwaukee, Wis. and Downers Grove, IL.
- Janice E. Nevin, MD, MPH, president and CEO of ChristianaCare, Wilmington, Del.
- Jim Prister, President and CEO of RML Specialty Hospital, located in Chicago and Hinsdale, IL.
- Nicholas R. Tejeda, Group CEO of The Hospitals of Providence in El Paso, Texas.
- Douglas S. Brown, president of community hospitals and chief administrative officer at UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc., in Worcester, Mass.
- D. Montez Carter, PharmD, MBA, FACHE, president and CEO of St. Mary’s Health Care System in Athens, Ga.
- Bruce White, CEO of Knox Community Hospital, a community-owned, not-for-profit hospital managed by Quorum Health Resources in Mount Vernon, Ohio.
