Board of Directors
Click the names below to reveal brief bios and contact information for each Practice Greenhealth board member.
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Aparna Bole, MD (Board Chair)
Sustainability Manager, University Hospitals
Aparna Bole, MD, FAAP is a pediatrician at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She is board certified in pediatrics, and her special interest is in general pediatrics.
Dr. Bole is a cum laude graduate of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., and the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Mich. At graduation she received the Department of Pediatrics Harry A. Towsley Award for outstanding performance in pediatrics and the Dean's Commendation for Excellence in Clinical Skills and the Art of Medicine for superior skills in patient interviewing, counseling and physical diagnosis.
She completed a residency in pediatrics at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, serving as Chief Resident in her final year of training. She was appointed to the UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital staff in 2010.
In addition to her clinical interests, Dr. Bole is the UH system Sustainability Manager. In this capacity, she leads the organization in integrating environmental along with social and economic considerations in all of UH’s operating practices. She is a frequent national speaker on sustainability in healthcare and sustainability as a pediatric public health issue.
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Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Executive Advisor and Chief Executive Officer Emeritus at Gundersen Health System
Jeffrey E. Thompson, MD, is a pediatric intensivist and neonatologist, executive advisor and chief executive officer emeritus at Gundersen Health System. Dr. Thompson is on the Board of Practice Greenhealth.
Since completing his professional training in 1984, Dr. Thompson has worked full-time solely at Gundersen. He served on Gundersen's boards beginning in 1992 and played a key role in the organization's negotiations and governance design. Dr. Thompson served as executive vice president from 1995 to 2001 and as chief executive officer from 2001 to 2015.
A founding member and past board chair of the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality and a 2013 White House Champion of Change, Dr. Thompson has led Gundersen's nationally-recognized initiatives for patient care, quality improvement and sustainability.
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Kathy Gerwig
Vice President, Workplace Safety and Environmental Stewardship Officer, Kaiser Permanente
Kathy Gerwig is Vice President, Workplace Safety and Environmental Stewardship Officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans serving almost nine million members. Kathy is responsible for developing, organizing and managing a nationwide environmental initiative for the organization. Under her leadership, Kaiser Permanente has become widely recognized as an environmental leader in the health care sector. Kathy has testified twice to Congress on the need for federal chemical policy reform, and she has appeared at numerous hearings on environmental and safety issues. Kathy is also Kaiser Permanente’s national leader for Workplace Safety, responsible for strengthening efforts to eliminate workplace injuries for the organization’s 164,000 employees and 15,000 physicians. She is on the boards of several leading non-governmental organizations focused on safety and environmental sustainability in health care.
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Blair L. Sadler
Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
Blair L. Sadler, Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), is also a member of the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, Schools of Medicine and Management. Under his leadership as former President and CEO, Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego received the Ernest A. Codman Award for its work in developing clinical pathways. Mr. Sadler was a board member of the Center for Health Design, has been heavily involved in developing the business case for building better hospitals through evidence-based design, and was a founder of the Center's Pebble program that disseminates pioneering work on evidence-based design. He is a frequent speaker on the topics of building optimally safe hospitals through evidence-based design and the hospital trustee role in patient safety and quality. He is faculty for the IHI program on Effective Crisis Management, an active participant in the IHI Fellows Alumni Program, and lead author of the IHI white paper on evidence-based environmental design. He is co-author of the book Transforming the Healthcare Experience Through the Arts. -
Sister Susan Vickers, RSM (Co-Chair)
Vice President Community Health, Dignity Health
Sister Susan Vickers is the Vice President of Community Health for Dignity Health. She is responsible for directing and overseeing systemwide community benefit initiatives, corporate social responsibility and ecology programs.
In conjunction with her community health work, Susan directs Dignity Health’s shareholder initiatives. She collaborates with other members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) to raise social responsibility issues with the management of companies in Dignity Health’s investment portfolio. Susan took a leadership role in developing Dignity Health’s systemwide commitment to improved environmental performance and in the decision-making process which led Dignity Healthto endorse the Ceres Principles for environmental protection and conservation.
Susan currently serves as board member of Practice Greenhealth, Healthier Hospitals Initiative, Partners for the Common Good Loan Fund, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and St. Mary Medical Center Foundation.
Prior to joining Dignity Health, Susan served on the Leadership Team of the Sisters of Mercy - Regional Community of Burlingame, California. She has worked as pastoral minister/administrative assistant in assisted rental housing for elderly and handicapped persons and spent twenty years in teaching and administering elementary schools.
