“It is important to celebrate our victories, but we cannot linger on them. For the Infinite Game is still going and there is still much work to be done.”
– Simon Sinek, The Infinite Game
By the time you read this, my tenure with Hospital Council will have ended.
I have been humbled by the outpouring of support since I announced I’d accepted the role of President & CEO of the California Hospital Association (CHA). As I reflect on eight years with Hospital Council, a book I read years ago feels especially relevant.
Simon Sinek describes an “infinite game” as one with no fixed end and no final winner. Players come and go, the rules shift, and the object is simply to keep playing — and to play better. There is no truer infinite game than health care. Policy trends rise and fall, and the forces supporting or undermining hospital care keep changing, yet the mission of caring for patients stays constant. “Better” is the goal, not “best,” because hospitals’ work is never done.
We have had real victories together, and they’re worth celebrating. We stood shoulder to shoulder through COVID-19, sharing information, supplies, and resolve when our communities needed us most. We worked with PG&E leadership to protect hospitals during public safety power shutoffs, so the lights stayed on and patient care never stopped. And we built behavioral health strategies that brought hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment and more than 120,000 treatment slots to our region. None of these successes belonged to one person; they happened because hospitals chose to trust one another and focus on what unites them.
I owe deep thanks to our Hospital Council board, to all of the hospital and health system leaders who make up this council, and above all to the Hospital Council team, who made the hard work look easy.
Hospital Council is in excellent hands. CHA’s Julie Reppas is serving as Interim President & CEO, and a national search is underway with WittKieffer, led by Board Chair Rachael McKinney (Sutter Health) and Jason Wells (Adventist Health) as co-chairs. I have every confidence in what comes next.
The years ahead will test us. Medi-Cal cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, state cost targets, and workforce pressures will demand everything we’ve learned. But when hospitals work together toward a shared cause, they can weather any storm.
So this isn’t goodbye. In an infinite game, the players change seats, but the game, the work, and the mission must go on. I will still be at the table with you, now from CHA, and I am honored to keep working on these issues alongside you and on your behalf.