Laura Landy, President and CEO of the Fannie E. Rippel Foundation, and CEO emeritus of the Mayo Clinic Denis Cortese were appointed to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Board of Trustees, according to a July 23 press release.
Landy was named president and CEO of the Rippel Foundation in 2006 and has served as a member of the foundation's board of trustees since 1998. The Rippel Foundation seeks innovative solutions to challenges faced by the current health care system and takes a systems-approach to health care, according to its website.
She is also the founder and chair of ReThink Health, an initiative run through the Rippel Foundation that works to achieve better health care at lower costs.
Throughout her career, Landy has applied business and strategic thinking to the creation of sustainable solutions to challenging social issues, she said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"For the last six years heading the Rippel Foundation, I have been focusing on how you develop tools and support to help leaders transform the health system," Landy said. "I'm very committed to looking at new models and at how we can combine social planning with business planning."
Landy said that creating sustainable change is important because "if we don't have a business approach that works, then no system change is going to be realistic."
Landy's focus on entrepreneurship, sustainable health care and the strategic alliance among health, business and cultural institutions has prepared her for her position on the DHMC Board of Trustees, she said.
"This [appointment] feels like a natural fit and a natural extension of things I'm most passionate about," Landy said. "I'm very excited to be in the company of the other trustees and about the level of expertise they will bring."
Landy received her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis and her MBA from New York University.
Cortese served as the CEO of the Mayo Clinic from 2003 through 2009. He is now a professor at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business and Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, the director of ASU's Health Care Delivery and Policy Program and the president of the nonprofit Healthcare Transformation Institute in Phoenix, Ariz.
He serves on the boards of directors for Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, Cerner Corporation and Essence Global Holding Corporation, according to the release. Cortese is chair of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Value and Science Driven Healthcare and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering's Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
Cortese received a bachelor's in science from Franklin and Marshall University and a medical degree from Temple University. He completed his residency training in internal medicine and pulmonary diseases at the Mayo Clinic, according to the release.
James Weinstein, CEO and president of DHMC said in the release that Landy and Cortese were selected to join the Board because "they have been visionary leaders in meaningful reform of the U.S. health care system."
The appointment of Cortese and Landy as trustees will be approved with a formal election at the Board's next meeting.
Rick Adams, media relations manager at DHMC, declined to comment for this article. Cortese could not be reached for comment by press time.
