HealthTrust 2025 Member Recognition Awards
HealthTrust recognizes the outstanding performance of its members through an annual Member Recognition Awards program. This year, seven member organizations received awards for their demonstrated excellence in several areas, including Clinical, Innovation, Operational (acute and non-acute), Social Stewardship, Pharmacy and the Outstanding Member award. The awards were presented to the recipients during the HealthTrust University Conference in San Antonio.
“As the pinnacle of member achievement, the 2025 recipients elevate the standard of excellence within our network & inspire all of us to strive for continuous & impactful improvements.”
Ed Jones, President & CEO, HealthTrust
Clinical Excellence Award
Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System
For transforming its Value Analysis Program into a clinician-led, evidence-based process that improves patient outcomes and reduces costs, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health (FMOL Health) System received the Clinical Excellence Award.
In 2024, FMOLH adopted a Cost/Quality/Outcomes (CQO) approach with the intention of replacing the cost-driven, reactive Value Analysis Program with a framework that places clinical quality and standardization at the center of every product evaluation and strengthens the connection between operations and care delivery.
The CQO framework empowers clinicians to co-lead evidence-based evaluations alongside supply chain and administrative team members, and standardized workflows and evaluation tools replace inconsistent processes. With the help of the HealthTrust Clinical Resource Management team, FMOL Health identified 14 product categories to apply the new process to, estimating a $4.3 to $7.5 million potential savings without compromising clinical integrity.
“The initiative is redefining the role of value analysis as a clinical force multiplier—demonstrating that when clinicians lead, outcomes improve, costs decline and the system becomes stronger for every patient served,” says N. Yvonne Odimgbe, FMOL Health’s Account Director at HealthTrust.
Innovation Award
Trinity Health
For its transformative use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to revolutionize Procure-to-Pay, Trinity Health earned the Innovation Award.
Trinity began exploring RPA in 2019 as a way to manage growth without continually adding full-time employees, says Kristyl Tucker, Trinity’s Director, Continuous Improvement & Customer Service Operations. The goal was to automate repetitive, high-volume procurement and accounts payable tasks to reduce manual efforts and free up staff.
To help make this program successful, HealthTrust’s peer network has been “invaluable,” Tucker says. “Talking with others who are implementing RPA or who have already been through the process provided perspective and practical insights we could apply immediately.”
Today, bots in more than 20 locations perform the work equivalent to 23 full-time employees. “What began as a strategy to manage growth has evolved into a catalyst for transformation,” Tucker adds. Once employees realized RPA would free them from repetitive tasks, they became some of its strongest supporters and even generated many of the best ideas for potential tasks to automate.
HealthTrust’s recognition of our work, she says, “has ignited new energy across the health system,” and has gained the attention of leaders [internally and externally] who are looking to Trinity’s team for advice on implementing their own RPA strategies.
Operational Excellence Award (Acute Care)
McLeod Health
For developing an innovative Item Management Application that streamlines and automates the resolution of external product disruptions, McLeod Health earned the acute care Operational Excellence Award.
McLeod Health was drowning in product disruptions. “When we measured it, we had received over 10,000 PO lines backordered in the prior 12-month period,” shares BJ McCluskey, McLeod Health’s AVP of Strategic Sourcing & Contracting. The process McLeod had in place was largely manual, which created failure points, waste and inconsistent communication. “We needed a way to manage product disruptions that was efficient and automated to reduce the disruption to the clinical teams and lower the resource demand on supply chain.”
To assist with disruption notification, McLeod works with a HealthTrust point person on the front end who helps identify products in-house that meet their needs or potential substitutes that can be clinically validated.
“This recognition means a lot to our team,” McCluskey says. “It helps validate our culture of continuous improvement and motivates us to strive harder.”
Outstanding Member Award
USA Health
For its exceptional partnership with HealthTrust, USA Health was named this year’s Outstanding Member, demonstrating significant financial improvement through robust engagement across multiple initiatives.
USA Health supply chain management was tasked with finding significant savings in 2025, says Chase Labrato, USA Health’s Materials Management Director. To accomplish this, the supply chain team implemented a multifaceted approach of supply and service conversions, enhancing existing contracts and vendor partnerships, and providing their clinicians with actionable data to drive cost reductions.
Key to the approach was utilizing HealthTrust’s vast resources. Their dashboards identified conversion opportunities and with the partnership of the HT team, they were able to renegotiate physician preference item contracts and leverage vendor spend across multiple service lines to drive savings. Implementing HealthTrust dashboards for spine/osteobiologics, cardiovascular and orthopedics enabled USA Health to engage with their physicians around cost variance by procedure and surgeon. In the first quarter alone, USA Health completed initiatives worth more than $200,000 in savings; it is on track to realize another $600,000 this year.
“All levels and services within our organization were touched by one or more of the initiatives this year and the grit displayed by employees allowed us to achieve some incredible results,” Labrato says.
“Through this effort, we’ve benefited from HealthTrust and Valify resources that we didn’t know were available and we have been impressed with the level of engagement from their various teams,” Labrato adds. “Being able to utilize services beyond the core GPO really gave us the edge we needed and the impact on our initiatives has been huge.”
Social Stewardship Award—Sustainability
Boston Medical Center
For its comprehensive sustainability initiatives that extend beyond hospital walls, Boston Medical Center (BMC) earned the Social Stewardship Award.
Recognizing the significant impact of environmental factors such as climate, air pollution and financial instability on health, BMC has committed to fostering long-term sustainability practices in a number of ways:
- Investing in energy-efficient infrastructure to reduce its facilities’ use of electricity and heat
- Joining with other local organizations in a solar power purchase agreement
- Resulting in a 94% reduction in carbon emissions
- Positioning BMC to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050
- Harnessing the electricity generated by a 356-kilowatt solar array on the roof of its administrative building, BMC is piloting the Clean Power Prescription program to:
- Identify in-need patients who are part of its Complex Care Management Program
- Provide them with monthly energy credits to reduce their home electricity bills by 30%
- Addressing food insecurity with two rooftop farms (spanning nearly 8,000 square feet) to produce fruits, vegetables and herbs for use in BMC cafeterias and food outlets that support local community organizations
- Offering an on-site Preventive Food Pantry, where BMC patients can fill supplemental food prescriptions from their physicians
“We have learned that we need to address not only the patients’ medical conditions inside the walls of our hospital, but to get upstream and support them with other obstacles to their medical care,” says David Maffeo, BMC’s Executive Director of Support Services & Sustainability.
Through a collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceuticals, BMC is conducting waste audits in key areas, such as inpatient and outpatient pharmacy, with the intention of helping healthcare organizations tackle the industrywide challenge of reducing regulated medical waste.
And with private equity firm Omicelo, BMC created Oakwell, a sustainability management and real estate optimization firm that creates custom sustainability and real estate strategies for health systems that help them reduce energy consumption, lower costs and free up capital for reinvestment in clinical care and operations.
The goal of all these efforts, says Nina Ng, Communications Manager at BMC, “is to close health gaps, improve efficiencies to reduce waste, and reinvest savings into patient care.”
“Our HealthTrust partnership,” shares Maffeo, “allows us to get insight into their broad reach nationally, whether it’s direct support through their expertise or connecting us with one of their members facing similar challenges.”
Ng and Maffeo agree that being recognized for these efforts, “affirms the importance of the work being done and inspires BMC colleagues to continue pursuing meaningful change with even greater passion and commitment.”
Gita Wasan Patel Pharmacy Excellence Award
Cape Cod Healthcare
For its strategic use of a specialty GPO to significantly accelerate cost savings across multiple service lines, Cape Cod Healthcare received the Gita Wasan Patel Pharmacy Excellence Award.
In the spring of 2024, Cape Cod Healthcare (CCHC) began the process of implementing a specialty GPO as a way to mitigate annual cost increases in certain outpatient settings. The program began with 25 distinct line items, increasing to 83 by the end of the year. “During that time, we managed to exceed our initial savings estimates by a factor of 2.5 times,” says James Mangan, Cape Cod Healthcare’s Executive Director of Pharmacy Operations. The forecasted savings is approximately $7 million in the clinical realm and about $1 million on the retail/specialty side.
Working with HealthTrust also helped identify $600,000 a year in rebating opportunities and resulted in implementing better payment terms, which had a favorable effect on cash flow.
“The project reinforced the CCHC way—taking a different approach to solve the problems we face (drug expense), and making sure we get the small stuff right,” says Mangan. “Knowing that we had HealthTrust in our corner reviewing the agreements and negotiating on our behalf allowed us to focus on the process and successful implementation of the specialty GPO.”
Operational Excellence Award (Non-acute Care)
Duly Health and Care
In recognition of its comprehensive implementation initiative that set a new benchmark for operational excellence and financial results, Duly Health and Care received the non-acute Operational Excellence Award.
A crucial component of Duly’s strategy was leveraging AdvantageTrust’s contracts. Instead of defaulting to incumbent vendors, Duly vigorously examined the organization’s portfolio and worked with the GPO’s team to identify business partners that support clinical excellence and optimize savings.
Key to Duly’s strategy was a clear and focused road map created by the AdvantageTrust team that aligned supply chain, clinical, pharmacy and executive stakeholders, and incorporated touchpoints to keep on track.
In less than a year, Duly’s strategy achieved nearly $4 million in verifiable savings. “What made Duly’s success possible is the hard work of its principals in partnership with the AdvantageTrust team,” shares Steven Samaan, Vice President of Procurement at Duly.
“Almost daily we work with AdvantageTrust, homing in on our data feed to be able to identify spend leakage and where we could be on contract, resulting in total cost ownership improvement,” Samaan adds. “Within my role, it’s all about thinking ahead and AdvantageTrust helps me do that.” Read more in A Bold Transformation.
READY TO SHARE YOUR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT WINS? The application process for the 2026 Member Recognition Awards program is open now through March 20, 2026. Start thinking about your organizational successes, talk to your HealthTrust or AdvantageTrust Account Manager, and get ready to submit. The criteria for each category can be found here. To nominate an individual or a team, please complete the submission form at the survey site. Questions? Contact: HTUawards@healthtrustpg.com
Winners will be recognized during the HealthTrust University Conference, July 20-22 2026, in Denver, Colorado.
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