The Steven Schroeder Award for Outstanding Healthcare CEO was presented recently at The Leapfrog Group’s annual meeting.

This year’s recipient is Richard A. Anderson, president and CEO of St. Luke’s University Health Network, a fully integrated, regional, nonprofit network of more than 20,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350-plus outpatient sites in central eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey.

The award was created by Costs of Care, a leading nonprofit dedicated to cultivating change agents who will lead the creation of a more affordable and equitable health system, in conjunction with The Leapfrog Group, the nation’s leading advocate for patient safety and transparency. The award recognizes a hospital and/or health system CEO who has demonstrated courageous and ethical leadership addressing the twin issues of affordability and quality of health care in their community.

Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said: “We are proud to honor Richard Anderson at St. Luke’s with this year’s award. He has dedicated his career to putting patients first and truly leads by example. As a result, St. Luke’s Health System is a beacon of excellence showing the lifesaving power of great leadership.”

The Outstanding Healthcare CEO award is named in honor of Steven Schroeder, MD, Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care at the University of California San Francisco and former president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Schroeder has spent five decades inspiring and mentoring leaders to forcefully advocate for better quality and more affordable health care, and he has inspired leaders of both Costs of Care and The Leapfrog Group.

“Richard Anderson has provided inspired leadership through his community stewardship of the St. Luke’s University Health Network,” Schroeder said. “During his almost four decades at the helm of the network, Anderson has achieved an extraordinary record of service to the community, innovative health professional education programs, patient safety, indigent care and cost-effective performance.

“As a result, the St Luke’s Network has been consistently recognized by multiple national organizations and has enjoyed high levels of employee satisfaction. At a time when many health care systems are struggling, Anderson demonstrates that a health care leader can both do well and remain fiscally viable. He is truly an inspirational leader.”

Under Anderson’s four decades of leadership, St. Luke’s has undergone a remarkable transformation from a single community hospital to an expansive, integrated 15-campus system. He oversaw the creation of the region’s first and only medical school campus, in partnership with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, so students could receive their training locally. He also led the resurgence of St. Luke’s School of Nursing, the oldest continuously operated nursing school in the nation. These initiatives established a critical recruitment pipeline enabling St. Luke’s to expand to meet growing demand for services despite a national health care worker shortage.

Throughout the network’s growth, Anderson elevated quality and affordability, along with access to care, to the forefront of the network’s culture. Today, St. Luke’s consistently earns more major awards and recognitions for quality and safety than any other health system in the country.

In the past year alone, the network has earned the following:

• Leapfrog A grades at all 11 eligible acute care St. Luke’s hospitals.

• Leapfrog Top Hospital designations at five SLUHN hospitals.

• CMS Hospital 5-stars ratings (the highest) at 10 hospitals.

• PINC AI 100 Top Hospital Award (12-time winner, 10 years in a row, No. 13 ranked Major Teaching Hospital).