After a long, successful and inspiring career in healthcare leadership, Bonnie Phipps has decided it’s time to join her husband in retirement.
Bonnie has served Ascension in various leadership roles for more than 11 years, including almost 10 years as Chief Executive Officer at Saint Agnes HealthCare in Baltimore. Currently, Bonnie serves as Senior Vice President, Ascension Health/Group Ministry Operating Executive, with strategic and operational responsibility for health ministries in Baltimore; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Lewiston, Idaho; Amsterdam and Binghamton, New York; Washington, D.C.; and Pasco, Washington.
A consummate professional, Bonnie has served as a role model for other healthcare leaders throughout her career. She currently serves as a Career Sponsor in the Ascension Leadership Academy, providing valued mentorship and guidance to participants who are the future senior leaders of Ascension.
“Like so many others, I have been blessed to get to know and work closely with Bonnie,” said Patricia A. Maryland, Dr.PH, President, Healthcare Operations and Chief Operating Officer, Ascension Health. “We will miss her compassion, her dedication and her commitment to our Mission.”
When Bonnie joined Ascension in January 2006 to lead Saint Agnes and return to her hometown of Baltimore, Albert R. Counselman, Saint Agnes Board Chair, said, “We have found one of the top hospital presidents in the country.” His words rang true over the ensuing decade, as under Bonnie’s leadership Saint Agnes pursued a $240 million campus expansion and renovation project. Saint Agnes also has led the important Gibbons Commons community revitalization project, which is converting the 32-acre site of the former Cardinal Gibbons High School into a mixed-use development of retail, housing, medical offices and recreation.
Bonnie has built or strengthened other important internal and community partnerships for Saint Agnes, including a recent affiliation with the University of Maryland Medical System to create a regional clinically integrated system of care to improve the health of individuals in the community and create an enhanced, cost-effective patient experience, and development of a successful physician organization. She also has been instrumental in helping the other health ministries in her Ministry Market group move toward relationships that can result in development of clinically integrated systems of care.
While at Saint Agnes, Bonnie contributed to nine years of successful financial and operational performance, supporting the health ministry’s ability to provide compassionate, personalized care to all with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable.
As Group Ministry Operating Executive, Bonnie oversaw the successful transition of Carondelet Health in Kansas City, Missouri, to Prime Healthcare Services, and she has been involved in the pending transition of the health ministries in Idaho and Washington to Capella Healthcare.
In 2014, Bonnie received the Circle of Excellence Award in healthcare from SmartCEO magazine. The program recognizes the Baltimore region’s most accomplished CEOs for business excellence in 10 distinct categories. SmartCEO said Bonnie attributed her success to having the right team, the right culture and the right leadership mentality.
Also that year, she was included in a list of 130 female “leaders to know” published by Becker’s Hospital Review. Those included in the list “demonstrate outstanding leadership within the hospital and healthcare industry and were chosen based on a wide range of management and leadership skills, including oversight of hospital or health system operations, financial turnarounds and quality improvement initiatives,” Becker’s said.
In 2013 Bonnie was selected by Baltimore’s The Daily Record as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women, an annual program to recognize women who have achieved personal success and contributed to bettering the communities in which they work and live. She also was inducted into the program’s Circle of Excellence, which recognizes women who have appeared on the list more than three times.
Before joining Saint Agnes, Bonnie served as the President and CEO of Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta. She also served as the President and CEO of PROMINA Health System and as the Chief Financial Officer at DeKalb Medical Center and Egleston Children’s Hospital, also in Atlanta.
Bonnie earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration, summa cum laude, from Georgia State University, Atlanta, and a master’s degree in professional accountancy, also from Georgia State University. She is a certified public accountant, certified managed care professional and a fellow in the Healthcare Financing Management Association (HFMA). She served as National Chairman of HFMA from 1992 to 1993, and in 1996 received the Morgan Award, the highest award given by the HFMA, for individual contributions to the industry.
Bonnie serves on multiple boards and has been a faculty member on several national programs. She was inducted into the Georgia State University Business Hall of Fame in 2005.
Bonnie’s retirement will be effective July 29. While she enjoys retirement with her husband, Charlie, a retired Delta pilot, she will continue to serve on six non-profit boards and as a mentor to several young healthcare executives.
“I invite everyone to join me in congratulating Bonnie on the culmination of a marvelous career of servant leadership, thanking her for her service to our One Integrated Ministry, and wishing her the best upon her retirement,” Pat said.
