Faculty

A highly specialized critical care, trauma and flight nurse, Trisha Bielski has extensive experience in nursing leadership, military healthcare, and quality and operational improvement.

Bielski recently retired from the U.S. Army after serving for more than 20 years and reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During her career, she served as an active-duty Army Nurse Corps officer, providing care in small and large hospitals, trauma centers and primary care clinics.

She mentored and guided nursing students as a hands-on instructor and nurse preceptor. She held leadership roles, including charge nurse, head nurse and chief nurse. Bielski was the chief of critical care nursing services for the largest and only Level 1 Department of Defense trauma critical care section at Brooke Army Medical Center.

While providing patient care and nursing supervision, she served as a representative with hospital leadership; collaborated with staff to ensure professional standards of care were met, developed and coordinated; and standardized patient care experience and nursing practice policies across the primary care continuum.

Bielski served as director of intensive care units at Methodist Hospital, where she oversaw two intensive care units in a 14-bed lung rescue unit and an extracorporeal oxygen membrane during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which she strategized staffing, supplies and equipment.

She is certified as an advanced practice registered nurse and is a board-certified critical care clinical nurse specialist focused on the adults to gerontology populations.

Bielski earned a Master of Science degree in nursing from San Diego State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. She is licensed in Texas, Wisconsin, California and Colorado and is a member of several professional organizations.

Michele Bosworth, MD, is a physician leader dedicated to collaboration and strategic approaches to transforming healthcare delivery for the needs of tomorrow. She has been a principal with Health Management Associates since January 2022. She works with provider organizations, health plans and health systems on practice transformation, population health and associated health information technology systems, performance improvement, leadership development, operational excellence and fetal care advisory services.

She joined HMA after serving in leadership positions with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. As their chief quality and patient safety officer, she oversaw the accreditation strategy (The Joint Commission); led successful site visits from TJC and CMS; and was responsible for organizational performance improvement initiatives, achieving CMS 5 stars, LeapFrog Patient Safety rating of A and maximum incentive payments from value-based care payment arrangements, meaningful use/Merit-Based Incentive Payment System and 1115 Waiver DSRIP.

Bosworth is a family physician and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Other leadership positions held include founding executive director of the UTHSCT Center for Population Health, Analytics, and Quality Advancement, Chief Medical Information Officer, and two medical directorships. She has led a clinical informatics governance and performance improvement council, graduate medical education quality and patient safety curriculum and structure, and a population health team.

She completed leadership fellowships from America’s Essential Hospitals and Texas Academic Leaders Association. She is a co-author of the fourth edition of the textbook, Leadership for Health Professionals.

Believing that an organization’s most important assets are its people, Bosworth has always made it her professional mission to develop those around her so that the organization can rise together. She also believes that focusing on strengths is a key to personal and professional development.

Bosworth completed her family medicine residency training at Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, NC, where she was asked to develop and operate MAHEC’s first satellite clinic upon graduation. As such, she served as the founding medical director for MAHEC’s Cane Creek Family Health Center where she practiced full-spectrum family medicine while maintaining a teaching faculty presence in the MAHEC Family Medicine Residency Program. It was at MAHEC that she learned the benefits of behavioral health integration, which she later developed at UTHSCT.

She earned a medical doctorate at West Virginia School of Medicine in Morgantown, West Virginia, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from West Virginia University. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a diplomat of the American Board of Preventive Medicine in clinical informatics and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.

Samantha Lang is an experienced public health professional with more than 10 years of work conducting research, outreach and providing organizational support. She has practical knowledge of health policy, harm reduction and the criminal-legal system, and is passionate about promoting health equity and patient autonomy.

During her career, Lang has worked in behavioral, reproductive, home care, senior and low-income health service environments. She has extensive experience in qualitative research and data collection, policy analysis, outreach and project management.

Before joining HMA, Lang served as both a research coordinator and program manager for the HEALing Communities Study at Columbia University. This National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded study aims to reduce opioid overdose fatalities in 67 communities by 40% in three years. While there, she provided organizational support to community coalitions working to implement study interventions and project management for the Columbia research team.

Lang has worked with stakeholders across the substance use disorder sector, from consumers to providers and policymakers. She worked with the Health Home program as a patient intake coordinator and as a research assistant for Gynuity Health Projects, focusing on reproductive healthcare. Her other focus areas include justice-involved care, health equity work and projects related to the social determinants of health.

Lang earned her master’s degree in public health from The City University of New York School of Public Health with a concentration in health policy and management. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Wesleyan University.

An experienced healthcare executive, Robert Ross is dedicated to developing solutions to provide quality, accessible, cost-effective care while ensuring the sustainability of safety-net providers to meet the needs of their communities. His expertise includes strategic planning, system integration, financial turnaround, continuum of care strategies, provider alignment, service line growth and leadership development.

During his long tenure with Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh, NY, he served in leadership positions including chief operating officer and chief executive officer. Ross led the financially distressed organization through a financial turnaround, resulting in a more than 40% bottom-line improvement in one year. He led the board and community through the development and implementation of a strategic plan focused on the long-term stability of the hospital. This process included evaluating partnerships, culminating in the merger with an academic medical center.

Also at St. Luke’s, he planned and executed a 10-year, $150 million master facility plan, integrated two hospitals, developed three clinical institutes, achieved the Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award for five consecutive years and launched 10 new service lines.

As chief operating officer of the 912-bed Medstar Washington Hospital Center in the District of Columbia, Ross led efforts to improve operational performance, reducing emergency department wait time, inpatient length of stay and patient time to admission. He created the Office of Patient Experience, which improved CMS star ratings. In addition, he collaborated on an assessment of behavioral health services and led resulting improvement efforts.

As regional executive vice president of Westchester Medical Center, he led the execution of a financial stabilization plan, integrated four community hospitals and developed a regional primary care practice.

Ross earned a master’s degree in health services administration from George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in computer and information sciences from Brooklyn College. He is an adjunct professor of Health Economics and Finance at the Montclair State University Department of Public Health.

Matthew Sandoval is an accomplished healthcare leader with a proven record of managing administration, operations and quality outcomes in large hospital systems.

Before joining HMA, Sandoval was chief quality officer and interim chief operating officer at Lakewood Regional Medical Center in Lakewood, California. He was responsible for quality outcomes for a 172-bed acute care hospital and led a team of 10 directors covering ancillary departments including laboratory; respiratory therapy; radiology; pharmacy; facilities; biomed; dietary and environmental services; and physical, occupational and speech therapy.

He was responsible for the hospital’s regulatory response from agencies such as the California Department of Health, CMS and The Joint Commission. Sandoval designed the hospital’s COVID-19 response, including managing changes in guidance from the CDC and Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. He also successfully executed the hospital’s COVID-19 vaccine response clinics.

As chief deputy director and chief operating officer at Ventura County Healthcare Agency, Ventura County Medical Center and Santa Paula Hospital, Sandoval served as an operations leader and second in command, overseeing the public health, behavioral health, hospitals, ambulatory care, medical examiner’s office, Ventura County Health Plan and Animal Services of Ventura County in the director’s absence. He supervised an annual budget of $850 million and coordinated a successful Joint Commission hospital accreditation survey.

Sandoval also assisted in the ambulatory care operations of 15 hospital-based clinics, five exempt clinics and 23 federally qualified healthcare centers through monthly financial reviews.

Previously, Sandoval was an assistant hospital supervisor at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, CA and was responsible for performance improvement, infection control, medical staff office, medical library, risk management, cancer registry, regulatory and patient safety departments. He completed a successful general acute care relicensing survey, implemented a strategic plan to reduce hospital infection rates and initiated a culture of safety program. He also set strategic priorities including implementation of TeamSTEPPS^® training in the emergency, labor and delivery, and operating room departments.

Sandoval earned a Master of Health Administration degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Southern California. He is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, a Certified Joint Commission Professional, a Hospital Accreditation Certified Professional and a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.