CHI’s Kevin E. Lofton Receives Gold Medal Award from ACHE

Kevin E. Lofton, chief executive officer of Catholic Health Initiatives, has been named by the American College of Healthcare Executives as the recipient of its Gold Medal Award, the organization’s highest individual honor for outstanding leadership.

Lofton, who has served as CHI’s chief executive officer for more than 11 years, will accept the award at a ceremony March 16 in Chicago during the ACHE’s 58th Congress on Healthcare Leadership. Lofton is one of two national health care leaders honored with this year’s Gold Medal Award, joining Richard J. Umbdenstock, president and chief executive officer of the American Hospital Association.

An international professional society with more than 40,000 members, the ACHE bestows the award each year upon health care executives who best exemplify leadership at the organizational, local, state or national levels. The award recognizes leaders who “go beyond the confines of their own organization to continually contribute to the improvement of health care services and community health.”

It is the latest of several recent national honors for Lofton. In October 2014, he was named one of the “10 Most Admired CEOs in Healthcare” by Becker’s Hospital Review, a national magazine. In June, he was presented with the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s highest honor – the Richard L. Clarke Board of Directors Award, presented in recognition of his longtime leadership in creating healthier communities. In 1993, Lofton was the recipient of the ACHE’s Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year.

About Catholic Health Initiatives: Catholic Health Initiatives, a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed in 1996 through the consolidation of four Catholic health systems, expresses its mission each day by creating and nurturing healthy communities in the hundreds of sites across the nation where it provides care. One of the nation’s largest health systems, Englewood, Colo.-based CHI operates in 19 states and comprises 105 hospitals, including four academic health centers and major teaching hospitals and 30 critical-access facilities; community health-services organizations; accredited nursing colleges; home-health agencies; and other facilities that span the inpatient and outpatient continuum of care. In fiscal year 2014, CHI provided $910 million in charity care and community benefit -- a nearly 20% increase over the previous year -- for programs and services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. Charity care and community benefit totaled more than $1.7 billion with the inclusion of the unpaid costs of Medicare. The health system, which generated revenues of almost $13.9 billion in fiscal year 2014, has total assets of $21.8 billion. Learn more at www.catholichealthinitiatives.org