2022 Healthcare Heroes honorees
In partnership with the Roseman University of Health Sciences, Utah Business is proud to honor those who have made it their mission to improve the state of health in Utah during our annual Healthcare Heroes event. Congratulations to this year’s honorees!
Administrative Excellence
Andy Frasure
President | Advanced Health Care
LinkedIn
Andy Frasure has worked in the healthcare industry for over 25 years. He has worked with Advanced Health Care (AHC), an innovative post-acute provider delivering transitional nursing and rehabilitation, home healthcare, and hospice services from its inception in 2000. The hallmark of AHC is outstanding patient care, industry-leading outcomes, exceptional healthcare professionals, and state-of-the-art facilities. Frasure has worked with AHC in a variety of capacities, including as administrator, SVP of operations, and COO. He currently serves as president. Frasure believes his highest priorities are ensuring the optimal patient experience and creating a world-class culture for his team of healthcare heroes.
Tracy I. George, MD
President and Chief Scientific Officer | ARUP Laboratories
ARUP Laboratories is a leading Utah healthcare organization with more than 4,500 employees and thousands of hospital clients representing every state in the nation. As a physician and scientist, Dr. Tracy George combines strong medical expertise with a passion for business. Dr. George is a pathologist at the University of Utah with a successful academic career and a strong record of clinical activities, teaching, leadership, and more than 100 publications. She has held leadership positions in national and international organizations, including her current tenure as president of the International Society for Laboratory Hematology. Dr. George is a natural leader who displays confidence, empathy, and vision with a focus on strategy and action. She has brought tremendous energy and creativity to ARUP, driving organizational change that brings new business opportunities that help ARUP succeed in the highly competitive medical laboratory industry.
Heather Brace
Chief People Officer | Intermountain Healthcare
Heather Brace is responsible for Intermountain Healthcare’s engagement culture for more than 59,000 employees spanning six states. Brace knows first-hand the importance of how an organization can shape and support an employee’s ambitions and goals. Because of this, Brace is a champion for employees and places great emphasis on the employee experience. As CPO, Brace has created a more transparent culture of listening and action among employees. Under her leadership, Intermountain has expanded employee education opportunities, developed a remote work strategy, created programs like the Intermountain Food Box program, PTO donation, and the Caregiver Assistance Fund to help employees in need, expanded benefits like parental leave and infertility coverage, strengthened partnerships with local Utah businesses, increased the minimum wage, and much more.
Jennifer Sadoff
CEO | Moab Regional Hospital
Jen Sadoff has a BFA in fiber arts and art education. After leading a community nonprofit for many years, Sadoff came to healthcare through the front doors of numerous hospitals while navigating her ailing father. The experience developed her deep appreciation for the art of providing care. She joined Moab Regional Hospital in 2012 as the director of community relations and transitioned to the role of CEO in 2015. She is also the chair of the Western Healthcare Alliance Board of Trustees. Sadoff says her main skill is recognizing great people and knitting them together into a team that is engaged and committed. She credits the people around her for the many things the hospital has accomplished in the last few years, including opening an outpatient addiction recovery center.
Lora Bell
Social Worker | Optum Healthcare
LinkedIn
Lora Bell was raised in rural Utah and graduated from high school in Emery County. She later moved to the four corners area in New Mexico, where she pursued a degree in psychology at New Mexico Highlands University. Bell has been a part of the OptumCare team for the past five years as part of her decade-long healthcare career. At OptumCare, Bell works with registered nurse case managers, medical directors, representatives from the Optum Community Centers, and other professionals to help develop and manage complex care plans for vulnerable persons and help connect them with community resources and other healthcare and wellness needs. Outside the office, Bell has been closely involved with several community causes dear to her heart, including the Ronald McDonald House, the Alzheimer’s Foundation, and others.
Sebastian de Freitas
Multicultural Community Relations Partner | SelectHealth, Intermountain Healthcare
LinkedIn
Sebastian de Freitas was born in Uruguay and emigrated to the US when he was 23 years old. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese and became licensed in health insurance, which he describes as the fourth language he can now speak fluently. With 16 years of healthcare marketing experience and more than 25 years of multicultural consumer engagement roles, de Freitas is passionate about access, equity, and helping those who may be new to the healthcare system in the US. He has led Latinx marketing for regional insurers such as the Regence Group, visited over 17 states teaching consumers about their healthcare options, and more recently leads multicultural relations for integrated health systems such as SelectHealth. Sebastian’s key initiatives include Medicaid outreach, community partnerships, scholarships, and multicultural marketing. He is also chair of the board of directors of Centro de la Familia and a member of the One Utah Health Collaborative Executive Committee assembled by Gov. Cox.
Corporate Initiatives
Maren Jacobson
Utah Regional Director | ABS Kids
Maren Jacobson is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst who has served patients with autism and their families for over a decade. Overseeing the Utah region at ABS Kids, Jacobson ensures that over 500 patients receive the highest quality care. With her support, the team at ABS Kids has achieved a three-year Behavioral Health Center of Excellence accreditation, the highest in the industry of applied behavior analysis (ABA). Jacobson demonstrates servant leadership as she works with teams of directors, supporting departments, and over 600 providers. She has been instrumental in increasing access to ABA therapy across the state, assisting in the opening of five therapy centers, extending home-based treatment into remote regions, and recently expanding into the St. George area. Autistic children can be overlooked in our communities, and Jacobson works hard each day to offer an opportunity for children and their families to experience big breakthroughs.
Lee Ann Sanford
Benefits Analyst | Savage
LinkedIn
In a nation where the annual suicide rate increased by 35 percent between 2000 and 2020, studies show that a significantly larger number of transportation and warehouse industry workers take their own lives. Savage evaluated data from Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah that showed employee health insurance claims had increased nearly 100 percent during the past two years. This data served as a pivotal trigger to proactively tackle the topic of mental health among Savage employees, with the ultimate goal to increase well-being and prevent suicides. In May, Savage launched a comprehensive outreach campaign for its employees that utilized an intranet page as a one-stop place for employees to get help. The Savage Safety Share channel also shares anonymous stories from team members about mental health stresses to help normalize these types of experiences and reduce stigma. During the month of May, 400 employees visited the new Mental Health Awareness intranet page, and 350 employees participated in Mental Health Awareness Month activities.
Healthcare Nurse
Tammy Lawyer
ICU Nurse | Lakeview Hospital
Tammy Lawyer has been an ICU nurse at Lakeview Hospital for 10 years and is always said to be the “favorite night nurse” of ICU patients. At the height of the Covid pandemic, Lawyer was able to connect with patients on a personal level and ensure their safety and wellbeing, even solely advocating for and successfully facilitating a final visit between a husband and wife before the wife passed away. Lawyer is kind, compassionate, and calm, even in moments of high stress or emergency. She takes her time with each interaction to make every patient feel important and safe. She often picks up extra and on-call shifts within the unit, taking on tasks to assist management and caring for the most difficult patient cases. Lawyer’s commitment to caring with a warmhearted tone is often witnessed to bring ease and calmness to patients and families. Within her many years of ICU nursing at Lakeview, Lawyer has inspired many fellow nurses by her example.
Healthcare Educator
Daniel Wakamatsu
Lead Faculty, International Clinical Programs | Joyce University of Nursing & Health Sciences
LinkedIn
Throughout his nursing career, Daniel Wakamatsu has found the most meaning when working with programs that improve the health of communities. In the past, he has participated in outreach health screenings for migrant families, worked with the Veterans Health Administration to expand specialty clinic services in rural Northern California, and led one of the mass vaccinations sites that served over 3,800 people per day at the height of the Covid response with the Salt Lake County Health Department. In Fall 2021, he helped initiate the international clinical program at Joyce University of Nursing and Health Sciences, bringing students to locations in Honduras and Guatemala, where they work in tandem with local non-governmental organizations to improve the health of their respective communities.
Dustin Christensen-Grant
Assistant Dean of Admissions & Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice | Roseman University of Health Sciences
Dustin Christensen-Grant, PharmD, BCPS, is a transplant from the small town of Snow Hill, North Carolina. Christensen-Grant completed his biochemistry degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and his doctor of pharmacy degree at Wingate University in Charlotte, NC. Following graduation, he completed two years of residency at the Indiana University of Health and the University of Texas at Austin. In 2014, he moved to Utah to become a faculty member at Roseman University of Health Sciences while practicing on the internal medicine team at Intermountain Medical Center. This past year, he was recognized as the Distinguished Young Pharmacist of the Year by the Utah Pharmacist Association for his work in planning Pharmacy Day on Capitol Hill. This year he will serve as the President of the Utah Society of Health-System Pharmacists. His professional interests include pharmacy advocacy, LGBTQ healthcare access, and mindfulness amongst healthcare providers.
Linda S. Edelman
Professor & Director of the Utah Geriatric Education Consortium | University of Utah College of Nursing
Dr. Linda S. Edelman, PhD, RN, FAAN, grew up on a small farm in Kansas and is the first in her family to attend high school. Thanks to many mentors along the way, she became a nurse passionate about providing older adults, especially those living in rural areas, access to age-friendly care. Dr. Edelman leads Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded workforce development programs providing education and training to health care students, providers, and staff across Utah. Under her guidance, the Utah Geriatric Education Consortium has formed academic-clinic-community partnerships to develop innovative online training for providers and staff working in long-term services. Recognizing the need for primary care nurses, she sought HRSA funding to recruit and train nursing students to work in rural and underserved primary care settings.
Mikhail Shneyder
CEO | Nightingale College
LinkedIn
Mikhail Shneyder, MBA, RN, joined Nightingale College in 2012 and has served as the college’s CEO since that time. His leadership has shaped a unique organizational culture, allowing for the effective execution of the institution’s mission to expand geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic access to nursing education and the profession for underserved and underrepresented populations. After earning his nursing degree in Belarus, Shneyder and his family immigrated as refugees to the US to escape ethnic persecution in the early 1990s. He has been a licensed registered nurse in the US for 25+ years. He believes true change in nursing begins with education as a pathway to achieving health equity, solving the critical nursing shortage, and diversifying the profession in the US. As Nightingale College’s leader, Shneyder’s focus on improving diversity and inclusion has led the college to over 60 percent of its learner population identifying as non-white.
Innovation
Dan Liljenquist
SVP & Chief Strategy Officer | Intermountain Healthcare
LinkedIn
Dan Liljenquist is responsible for setting and achieving Intermountain Healthcare’s strategic priorities, as well as overseeing strategy, corporate development, government relations, and the care transformation and information systems teams. Prior to joining Intermountain in 2012, Liljenquist served in the Utah State Senate and was nationally recognized for his work on Medicaid and public-sector pension reforms. In 2021, he was recognized by Modern Healthcare as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” and as one of the “Top 25 Innovators in Healthcare.” Liljenquist is the architect and current board chair of Civica Rx, an initiative launched in 2018 to create a not-for-profit generic drug company that ensures essential generic medications are available and affordable to everyone. Liljenquist also helped launch and currently serves as board chair of Graphite Health, a member-led nonprofit company intent on making healthcare data interoperability easy and affordable and facilitating the rapid adoption of digital health solutions.
Dave Dirks
VP of Strategy | Intermountain Healthcare
LinkedIn
David Dirks is responsible for leading the development and execution of Intermountain Healthcare’s strategic initiatives. Under Dirks’ leadership, Intermountain has excelled in its shift toward value-based care. In 2018, Intermountain introduced its Reimagined Primary Care (RPC) model, which transitioned primary care physicians into value-based arrangements, realigned incentives, and reimagined the way providers care for their patient panels. RPC is a novel practice model that delivers high-value care for patients with financially aligned, “at-risk” payers, identified as groups with whom the system has a financial risk-bearing or risk-sharing relationship. Intermountain spun off Castell as a separate company to accelerate the implementation of RPC, help providers succeed in risk arrangements, and further its vision for shifting the healthcare industry from volume to value. Under Dirks’ guidance, Castell has grown into an industry leader in value-based care and population health.
Frank Licari
Dean | Roseman University College of Dental Medicine
LinkedIn
Dr. Frank W. Licari has been dean and professor of the Roseman University College of Dental Medicine since 2013. He has over 30 years of experience as an educator and administrator and is an internationally known speaker, author, and consultant. Dr. Licari has worked with over 80 dental schools on curriculum development, student competency assessment, accreditation, and faculty development in the US, Canada, Chile, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. He holds three advanced degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a member of the American Dental Association (ADA), American Association of Dental Research (AADR), American Dental Education Association (ADEA), the American Association of Public Health Dentistry (AAPHD), Utah Dental Association (UDA), and the Chicago Dental Society (CDS).
Victoria Glickman Hodgkins
CEO | PeopleKeep
LinkedIn
Victoria Glickman Hodgkins is the CEO at PeopleKeep, a provider of award-winning health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) and wellness stipend administration software for small to medium organizations. PeopleKeep enables thousands of employers to better care for their employees by offering personalized benefits and empowering employees to choose the products and services they actually want. Hodgkins’ career has had a specialized focus in healthcare, serving at companies like BambooHR, UpToDate, and GE Healthcare. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Healthcare Practitioner
Mairi Leining, MD
CEO | The People’s Health Clinic
LinkedIn
Dr. Mairi Leining is the CEO of The People’s Health Clinic (PHC), a free community clinic that serves as an essential safety net for the uninsured residents of Summit and Wasatch Counties. Most PHC patients are undocumented residents who live below the 100 percent Federal Poverty Level and are not eligible for government subsidies. In 2021, the clinic provided over 13,000 patient encounters for community members in need. Dr. Leining is also an MPH candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an adjunct assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Utah. She received her medical degree from Georgetown University and completed her residency training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School.
Steven G. Richardson
Family Medicine Physician | OptumCare Utah
Dr. Steven Richardson is a primary care provider for OptumCare Utah, a position he has held since 2020. Board-certified in family medicine, the United States Airforce veteran and Ohio native’s healthcare career has spanned three decades, including a three-year residency at Scott Airforce Base in Illinois. A graduate of The Ohio State University, where he was an Alpha Omega Alpha Society member, he has decades of experience treating patients of all ages and backgrounds. Currently, he focuses entirely on caring for Medicare and Medicare Advantage patients and is OptumCare Utah’s first provider to focus solely on treating older adults. Renowned for his interpersonal care style, Dr. Richardson prides himself on spending extra time with his patients and making himself available to them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, taking every step necessary to ensure they understand the full scope and all details related to their medical care.
Lifetime Achievement
Egda Minnoch
Environmental Services Associate | Lakeview Hospital
Egda Minnoch has served as an environmental services associate at Lakeview Hospital for 39 years, providing patients the care we would want our closest loves to receive. Minnoch treated patients and visitors with respect and kindness and followed through with seeing that they got the help they needed. Patients have appreciated her diligence in scrubbing rooms top-to-bottom and getting a nurse when they do not look well. Minnoch’s hand-drawn sign on her cleaning cart always said, “I love my job,” with a smiley face. She inspires her colleagues to be a little kinder, find joy in their work, and be passionate in their care. Minnoch is the first housekeeper at Lakeview Hospital to win the HCA Frist Humanitarian Award.
Joseph G. Carbone
Founder & President | Eye Care 4 Kids
Joseph G. Carbone, ABOC; NCLEC; FNAO, has been a board-certified optician for over 47 years and has spent the past 19 years in humanitarian service. Carbone worked in New York City at the prestigious Fredricks Optometrists—now the Morgenthal Fredricks—in the mid-1970s before opening a downtown Salt Lake City practice, The Eye Doctor, which operated from 1978-2006. Carbone made glasses for profit but began to notice that many children in need went without because they were uninsured, under-insured, or the expense was burdensome for families struggling to sustain basic needs. He opened the first Eye Care 4 Kids clinic in 2001 and has since served 400,000 individuals with vision screenings, eye exams, and eyeglasses—nearly $200,000,000 in vision services provided. Carbone’s summer vacations, since 2003, have been spent providing vision services to the more rural areas of the state and Native American reservations.
To learn more about our 2022 honorees, click the YouTube embed below. For more photos from our 2022 Healthcare Heroes event, click here.
