LSU Faculty Receives 2016 Modern Healthcare Excellence in Governance Award

Dr. Regina Benjamin, adjunct professor of health policy and systems management, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Public Health and endowed chair in Public Health Sciences, Xavier University of Louisiana received the 2016 Modern Healthcare Excellence in Governance Award.

It’s been nearly three years since former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin stepped away from the public eye as the nation’s top doctor. As the driving force behind the creation of the White House’s National Prevention Strategy, she worked to reduce preventable illness as a means of addressing health disparities within the poorest communities.

Dr. Benjamin, 59, has remained focused on those issues even as her role has changed. Since joining the board of directors of Catholic healthcare giant Ascension in September 2013, she has guided the nation’s largest not-for-profit system as it has embarked on new initiatives to address health challenges at the community level.

“My whole concept of healthcare has been along the lines of prevention,” Dr. Benjamin said. “I believe that health does not occur in the doctor’s office or the hospital only—it also occurs where we live, where we learn, where we work, where we play and where we pray—so health is in everything that we do.”

Read more here.