Mayo Clinic President and CEO Emeritus to Join EGHC Board

ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EGHC, the parent company of Essence Healthcare and other subsidiaries, today announced that Denis A. Cortese, MD, a champion of high quality and patient-centered health care, will join the company’s Board of Directors.

“Dr. Cortese will bring unique vision and wisdom to EGHC, and we are honored by his decision to join our Board of Directors”

Dr. Cortese is Director of the Health Care Delivery and Policy Program at Arizona State University (ASU), Foundation Professor at ASU and President of the Healthcare Transformation Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care delivery and lowering health care costs. He is also Chair of the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Value and Science Driven Healthcare, and serves on the boards of Pinnacle West and RAND Health.

From 2003 until his retirement in November 2009, Dr. Cortese was President and Chief Executive Officer of Mayo Clinic. Prior to that, he served in other administrative positions at Mayo, and worked in the organization’s pulmonary and critical care areas for nearly 30 years.

“Dr. Cortese will bring unique vision and wisdom to EGHC, and we are honored by his decision to join our Board of Directors,” said Frank Ingari, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “He joins three other distinguished physicians on our Board who provide guidance on the best ways to empower clinicians and their organizations with technology, evidence-based information and collaborative reimbursement strategies.”

“Our nation must identify, cultivate, demonstrate and deploy new models of health care that continually improve outcomes, safety and service, and that reduce overall spending,” Dr. Cortese said. “These improvements require new tools, skills and help from a variety of health care stakeholders with a shared commitment to rewarding better patient outcomes at lower costs. I’m looking forward to helping guide EGHC as it develops a toolbox filled with information technologies and a uniquely collaborative payment model that can help remake our health care system into one that rewards value over volume.”

“Joining the EGHC Board made sense for several reasons,” added Dr. Cortese. “One of the appeals to me was that in addition to assisting payers and larger provider organizations, EGHC is helping small medical groups and individual physicians succeed in the new world of higher-value health care.”

About EGHC

EGHC proudly serves the people who consume care, the professionals who provide care and the organizations that manage care. Lumeris and ClearPractice, our health care information technology companies, provide payers and health care providers innovative SaaS-based solutions necessary to adapt and thrive in the new era of value-driven health care. Essence Healthcare, our Medicare Advantage business, provides Medicare beneficiaries comprehensive and affordable health insurance focused on wellness and personal service. Through the health plan’s Collaborative Payer Model, information and ideas are openly exchanged, and physicians are properly rewarded for providing well-coordinated, high-quality patient care. By innovating at the leading edge of reimbursement, collaboration and clinical informatics, EGHC is leading the positive evolution of health care. Learn more online at www.eghc.com.