Maryjane A. Wurth
President & Chief Executive Officer
Illinois Hospital Association

Maryjane A. Wurth has served as President & CEO of the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA), one of the premier state hospital associations in the country, since October 2009. She is passionately committed to IHA's mission: To advocate for and support hospitals and health systems as they serve their patients and communities. With offices in Naperville, Springfield and Washington, D.C., IHA represents more than 200 hospitals and health systems throughout Illinois, advocating for a sustainable, patient-focused health care system that provides high-quality care and promotes healthy local communities.

Under Wurth's leadership, IHA has created a new Quality Care Institute, established IHA's first office in Washington, D.C., and spearheaded a joint quality initiative with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois to reduce Illinois hospital readmissions through Preventing Readmissions through Effective Partnerships (PREP). PREP will help Illinois hospitals significantly reduce the rate of patient readmissions by 2014 through five key initiatives.

Currently, Wurth serves on the American Hospital Association (AHA) Health & Education Trust's Board of Trustees and the AHA Committee on Research. In 2010, Wurth was appointed to the AHA Allied Hospital Association Advisory Committee on Health Care Reform Implementation. She also serves on the board of the national Coalition to Protect America's Health Care, which informs the public through the media about the important role hospitals play in the lives of all Americans.

Wurth is a member of the Healthcare Executives Study Society, the Economic Club of Chicago and the Chicago Network for exceptional women executives. She is currently a member of the board of directors of Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network, which covers Illinois and northwest Indiana.

Prior to joining IHA, Wurth had a 19-year career at the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), most recently as the Association's Chief Operating Officer and President/CEO of HANYS Solutions - HANYS' $20 million for-profit subsidiary, and of DataGen, a national company offering data solutions to health systems and state associations.

Wurth also was previously an independent health care consultant and the chief administrator of St. Peter's Hospice in Albany - the largest hospice in New York. In the early 1980s, she served as a research coordinator with Brown University for a federal government study on evaluating Medicare coverage of hospice care.

Wurth has a Master of Science degree from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York College at Cortland. She was a national Health Forum fellow in leadership and healthy communities and is a founding board member of the Helen Ptochia Foundation for African Fistula Hospitals. She is married with two young adult daughters.

4/2012