Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, a member of the Ascension Board of Directors, has received the 2016 Excellence in Governance Award from Modern Healthcare, a prominent publisher of healthcare business news, research and data.
Dr. Benjamin, who was recognized in the category of Healthcare System, is one of only six hospital and health system board members honored by Modern Healthcare in 2016. The award program, formerly known as Trustee of the Year, recognizes healthcare trustees and/or directors for their outstanding individual achievements serving on governing boards for organizations from all sectors of healthcare. “These exceptional board members are instrumental in guiding the growth and development of healthcare within their communities and across the country,” Modern Healthcare says.
Dr. Benjamin joined the Ascension Board in 2014. With her deep background in community health and her service as the 18th U.S. Surgeon General from 2009-2013, she has brought to the national health ministry a heightened focus on disease prevention and health promotion among individuals as well as large populations, with special interest in rural healthcare, health disparities among socio-economic groups, suicide, violence and mental health.
As the driving force behind the creation of the White House’s National Prevention Strategy, she worked to reduce preventable illness as a means of addressing health disparities within the poorest communities.
“My whole concept of healthcare has been along the lines of prevention,” Dr. Benjamin says in Modern Healthcare. “I believe that health does not occur in the doctor's office or the hospital only — it also occurs where we live, where we learn, where we work, where we play and where we pray — so health is in everything that we do.”
In 2015 Dr. Benjamin led efforts to convene Ascension’s first Community Health, Equity and Inclusion Conference in New Orleans. The conference brought together more than 150 of the System’s leaders to discuss strategies that enhance their work in improving outcomes at the local level.
“Her persistence and diligence are really helpful at the board table,” Anthony R. Tersigni, EdD, FACHE, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ascension,” says in Modern Healthcare. Her advocacy for health equity across gender and ethnicities has been critical in her role on the Board as she helps hold the System accountable to stay true to its Mission, he says.
“We focus a lot on disease and illness, but we have to address those social determinants of health like poverty, accessibility to care and a lack of education,” Dr. Benjamin said. “We need to look at things such as clean air and clean water and worksite wellness — they’re just as important when it comes to total outcomes of improving healthcare.”
David Pryor, MD, Ascension Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, said Dr. Benjamin’s ability to collaborate without losing sight of her goals has been an asset in moving the System toward improving its preventive-care efforts. “She is able to bring people together and achieve consensus while remaining true to her core principles,” he said.
Dr. Benjamin holds the NOLA.com/Times Picayune endowed Chair in Public Health Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana and is the founder of Bayou Clinic, a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
In 1995, she was the first physician under the age of 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees. Other past board memberships include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Catholic Health Association, and Morehouse School of Medicine.
Dr. Benjamin is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She was chosen as a Kellogg National Fellow and a Rockefeller Next Generation Leader.
In 1998 Dr. Benjamin was the U.S. recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights. She received the 2000 National Caring Award, which was inspired by Mother Teresa, and was recognized with the Papal honor Pro Ecclesia et Pontificefrom Pope Benedict XVI. In 2008 she was honored with a MacArthur Genius Award Fellowship. In 2011, Dr. Benjamin became the recipient of the Chairman’s Award at the 42nd NAACP Image Awards. In May 2013, Reader’s Digest ranked her No. 22 of the “100 Most Trusted People in America.”
Dr. Benjamin earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Xavier University, New Orleans, a medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Master’s in Business Administration from Tulane University, New Orleans. She attended Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, and completed her family medicine residency in Macon, Georgia. She is the recipient of 23 honorary degrees.
Dr. Benjamin is the second Ascension-related Board member to be recognized in the Modern Healthcare program. In 2012 James Patrick Thornton, a longtime Board member for St. Vincent’s HealthCare of the Ascension Jacksonville Ministry Market in Florida, was named Trustee of the Year in the category of not-for-profit healthcare system.
