Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | May 19, 2025 | wbjournal.com P OW E R 1 0 0 H E A LT H C A R E Louis Brady President & CEO Family Health Center of Worcester Employees: 425 Residence: Worcester Colleges: University of Massachu- setts Lowell, Northeastern University As CEO, Brady has brought FHCW, the region's largest federally qualified health center, back from the financial brink it was tiptoing off of just three years ago. Aer implementing a 120-day improvement plan in November 2022 that some thought the center wouldn't even survive, Brady has guided FHCW through back- to-back budget surpluses in 2023 and 2024: ending the fiscal years with a $1.2 million and a $947,001 surplus, respectively. In 2024, FHCW generated $66.64 million in revenue with $17.22 million in assets. As healthcare costs continue to rise throughout the state and nation, Brady has bolstered FHCW's capac- ities, allowing the health center to provide medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, and social services to more than 30,000 individuals through 130,000 in-person and virtual appointments. To best serve the region's diverse population and to meet patients where they're at, FHCW has increased the languages it offers to 78 throughout the 14 sites it operates. Knowing the financial strain not only on patients, but on healthcare workers, Brady implemented a cost-of-living pay adjustment for all the center's 425 employees. - M.K.M. Manny Lopes President & CEO Fallon Health, in Worcester Employees: 1,276 Residence: North Shore College: Northeastern University In July, Lopes stepped into his role leading Central Massachusetts' seventh largest health insurer and one of its largest employers, mere months before the President Donald Trump Administration began mulling over plans to cut billions in Medicaid funding. A tough position to be in as the head of an organization with about 71% of its 129,688 members enrolled in the government-run health insurer, but Lopes hasn't skipped a beat. Lopes came to Fallon having served for 20 years in executive healthcare leadership roles throughout the state, having most recently worked as interim CEO at Boston-based Fenway Health, a healthcare nonprofit centering the needs of the LGBTQIA+ community. As Fallon's CEO, Lopes led the organization as it moved its headquarters to the One Mercantile building in October, a massive li which included the relocation of hundreds of employees. He saw the nonprofit open its sixth Summit ElderCare Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly center, located in Framingham, extending Fallon's reach further into the MetroWest region. A leader in the community, Lopes serves on the board of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, the New Commonwealth Fund in Roxbury, and the Boston-based Health Equity Compact, of which he is a founding member. - M.K.M. PHOTO | COURTESY OF FALLON HEALTH Dr. Cherise Hamblin Medical director at UMass Memo- rial Medical Center doula program, in Worcester Founder of Patients R Waiting, in Pennsylvania Employees: 20,812 at UMass Memorial Residence: Worcester Colleges: Franklin & Marshall College, Northwestern University As maternal morbidity rates continue to rise throughout the state, Hamblin has become one of the region's most ardent advocates for the interrelated caus- es of addressing Black maternal health and diversifying healthcare professionals. Hamblin spends about half of her time providing direct care as an OB/GYN and attending physician at UMass Memorial while the other half is devoted to developing novel ways to enhance care for patients and the greater community. Since MassHealth announced in December 2023 it would cover doula care, Hamblin and UMMC's doula program have assembled to meet this heightened ac- cess, including creating new materials detailing services. As the founder of Patients R Waiting, whose mission is to eliminate health disparities by increasing diversity in medicine, Hamblin brought the Pipeline Dreams program to UMass Chan Medical School in January, providing 29 high school students with 12 weeks of exposure to healthcare careers. e program was managed by the school's Collaborative in Health Equity, where Hamblin serves as a director. - M.K.M. Dr. Eric Dickson President & CEO UMass Memorial Health, in Worcester Employees: 20,812 Residence: Princeton Colleges: Merrimack College, UMass Chan Medical School, Harvard University As the leader of both the largest employer in Central Massachusetts and its largest hospital care system, Dickson has worked tirelessly to address the region's most pressing healthcare needs. When Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer was about to close in the summer of 2024, Dickson said he was looking into every opportunity possible to support the region le without its most central hospital. Just nine months aer the hospital's closure, UMass Memo- rial announced it would open up a satellite emergency facility in Groton to help meet the healthcare needs of those in Nashoba Valley. Knowing the harmful effects of the interconnected issues of long emergency room wait times and patients stuck in the emergency department waiting to enter a step-down level of care, Dickson initiated the devel- opment of UMass Memorial's North Pavilion facility. e $220-million, 72-bed acute care facility opened in January, increasing the system's bed capacity by 8.8% across 73,000 square feet with an additional 13,600 square feet of shell space. Since its opening, the system has already begun to experience lowered ER wait times and improved em- ployee morale. - M.K.M. "True power doesn't begin or end with one person. It flows through an organization, growing stronger as it's passed along." - Dr. Eric Dickson, UMass Memorial Health

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