OhioHealth Southeastern Medical Center Employee Receives OHA’s Annual Health Care Worker of the Year Award
(Columbus, Ohio – 43215) The Ohio Hospital Association’s Albert E. Dyckes Health Care Worker of the Year award was presented to OhioHealth Southeastern Ohio Medical Center (Cambridge) employee Hope Foraker on Tuesday, June 13 during an awards ceremony.
“The dedicated service and commitment of this year’s nominees and honorees inspires all of us,” said Mike Abrams, president and CEO, OHA. “With over 430,000 employees at Ohio hospitals and more than 36 million patient encounters there is tremendous work being championed by hospital caregivers. We appreciate their accomplishments and value their leadership to ensuring a healthy Ohio.”
OHA’s Health Care Worker of the Year Award is presented each year to one Ohio caregiver who personifies a leader, motivates colleagues, influences others, provides valuable service and contributes, personifies the mission, vision and values of the organization, and has an impact in their community.
Foraker is a speech language pathologist with the hospital. Her nominator highlighted how “during the pandemic, when non-urgent procedures were canceled, she refused to accept that special needs children were unable to receive the therapy they needed. Determined to find a workaround, she singlehandedly led OhioHealth Southeast Ohio Medical Center’s rehabilitation facility to pivot to telehealth for physical, occupational, and speech therapy.”
OHA also announced four finalists for the award:
- Tina Kilburn-Stewart, Manager, Clinical Nursing, Kettering Health Dayton
- Natalie Thomas, RN, Human Resources Recruitment Specialist, Licking Memorial Hospital
- Thomas File, MD, MSc, FIDSA, Chair of the Infectious Disease Division and Co-Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, Summa Health
- Burlin Sherrick, Executive Director of Executive Director of Ancillary Services, Lima Memorial Health System
Each year, OHA invites member hospitals and health systems to nominate one outstanding professional for consideration for Health Care Worker of the Year. OHA enlisted a panel of outside reviewers to help identify this year’s five finalists and ultimate recipient. The award was established in 1996.
OHA also presented leadership awards to the following:
- Ohio Business Roundtable received OHA’s Dr. Eli Crew Community Service Excellence Award. This award recognizes an individual’s or organization’s support of the health care industry. The award is named in honor of Dr. Eli R. Crew, former superintendent of Dayton’s Miami Valley Hospital and OHA’s first president. In 1914, he led Ohio hospital administrators to an organizational meeting where OHA was founded.
- Mandy Goble FACHE, retired president and CEO, Mary Rutan Health, received OHA’s James R. Castle Distinguished Service Award, which honors an individual whose professional attainments embody qualities of an outstanding leader or mentor for service to the health care community.
- Bruce White, president and CEO, Knox Community Hospital, received OHA’s Donald R. Newkirk Award. The award is named for Don Newkirk who led OHA for 27 years and recognizes an individual who has made a significant lifetime contribution to the health care profession in Ohio.
View all the 2023 Health Care Worker of the Year nominees and leadership award honorees.
The OHA awards ceremony featured singer-songwriter and actress Angelica Hale. Hale was featured on “America’s Got Talent” and is a childhood sepsis survivor.
Click here for event photos.
