Toasting to a Healthy Westchester Wine Dinner

As the US Advisory Healthcare Sector Leader, Jen is a trusted advisor who enables health executives to embrace and prepare for disruptive innovation. Jen leads teams that enable market leaders to leverage applied innovation and nextgen tech to define business growth strategies, design new models of clinical care, and future proof the business, with a shared agenda to improve customer connectivity, clinical outcomes, access, and provider satisfaction. The Future of Health is here and convening the ecosystem for an equitable future is our north star. As a Founding Partner for Deloitte’s Health Equity Institute, Jen has teamed to set the strategy for our purpose driven agenda and investments and authored research around health disparities in the US and most recently, women’s health. As next gen technologies, GENAI, predictive analytics, supported by engagement platforms and new workforce models are being adopted, the basis of competition is shifting from pipeline to platform business models. Jen is passionate about partnering with health organizations through the next wave of disruption and reassembly, defining innovative and equitable business models, and the organization & workforce strategies that enable them. She is an acclaimed speaker on the topics of Future of Health and Health Equity nationally and has authored primary research & publications on these topics as well as Leadership, Future of Work & Workforce Transformation, Decision Making & Organization Strategies in the industry. Jen received her BA in Anthropology and Gender Studies from Amherst College, MPH in Population Health from the Mailman School of Public Health, and MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. A lifelong New Yorker, Jen resides in Manhattan with her husband & three children – Olivia (21), Aidan (18) and Julian (14), and goldendoodle, Milo, together they focus on curtailing food insecurity in the city.

Empress Ambulance is the leading provider of ambulance services in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Ulster, Sullivan, and Orange Counties, as well as the Bronx.

In responding to over 2.8 million EMS calls, Empress has provided comprehensive, compassionate emergency medical services to the people of New York State for 39 years. With headquarters in Yonkers and Poughkeepsie, in addition to many regional stations throughout the service area, Empress currently responds to over 230,000 requests for service annually.

Michael D. Israel is President and CEO of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth), the 1,800-bed regional healthcare system serving New York’s Hudson Valley and beyond, encompassing a regional academic medical center, children’s hospital, trauma centers, multiple community hospitals and inpatient and outpatient behavioral health centers, nursing homes, homecare and numerous outpatient health and related services.  Mr. Israel has served as President and CEO of WMCHealth (previously Westchester Medical Center) since August 2005, with almost 50 years of healthcare management experience.  Mr. Israel and his team have been credited with a significant financial turnaround of the region’s lifeline to advanced care, from a “financially challenged” county hospital to a thriving public benefit corporation-led health system, providing high-quality care to 300,000 children and adults annually with a workforce of 12,000 and approximately a $4 billion economic regional contribution.

Mr. Israel previously served as the COO of the North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System (Northwell Health) based in Great Neck, NY, where he was responsible for the operational performance of the 18 system hospitals. From 1993 – 2002, he was with Duke University, where he served as the CEO of Duke University Hospital, the University’s Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, and as Vice President of the Duke University Health System. Prior to Duke, he served as Executive Vice President at

St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital/Texas Heart Institute in Houston, TX, and in operational and financial leadership positions at UPMC/Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA and John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, NJ.

Mr. Israel holds a Master of Public Health, Hospital Administration, from Yale University where he received a United States Public Health Services Fellowship, and a Bachelor of Arts, Business Administration, from Rutgers College.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.