West Side United: Advancing Health Equity in Chicago

Dr. Ngozi Ezike became President and CEO of Sinai Chicago, Illinois’ largest private safety net health system, in June 2022. Previously, she was the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), where she valiantly navigated the state through the most difficult waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.

At Sinai, Dr. Ezike has focused on advancing health equity through innovation and creative collaboration. Under her leadership, Sinai Chicago has expanded community health worker programs and invested in state-of-the-art technology for electronic health records, robotic surgery and 3D imaging services -- allowing Sinai caregivers to work better and faster, providing better care and service for the people they serve.

Under her leadership, Sinai Chicago’s commitment to uncompensated charity care has been recognized in the top 10 percentile nationwide of safety net providers offering such care, making Sinai one of the top “fair share” contributors in the U.S. for charity care and community investment. 

Dr. Ezike is a board-certified internist and pediatrician as well as a nationally recognized public health leader. She holds degrees from Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and a business management certificate from Harvard Business School.  She holds honorary doctorates from Dominican University, Knox College, Rosalind Franklin School of Medicine and Southern Illinois University. She is the recipient of dozens of awards including Crain’s Chicago Business 2024 Women of Note, Crain’s Notable Leaders in Healthcare 2023, the Jane Addams Medal of Freedom, and USA Today's Inaugural Women of the Year Award for the State of Illinois.

Dr. Erik Mikaitis provides executive leadership to advance the health system’s strategic imperatives and ensure the provision of high-quality care and services, in collaboration with CCH’s medical and business leaders. He was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in October 2024, after serving in the Interim CEO role since November 2023.

Since joining CCH as Chief Quality Officer in 2022, Dr. Mikaitis has served as a champion of quality and compliance, implementing evidence-based processes to improve the delivery of care across the system. He implemented numerous quality initiatives to improve patient outcomes across CCH, including a new multifaceted strategy deployment system that resulted in significant improvement in the system’s sepsis prevention and treatment. Dr. Mikaitis enhanced the system’s quality and safety dashboard and deployed a regulatory readiness program. In this role, he also provided guidance for utilization management, coding and documentation, and hospital throughput.

Dr. Mikaitis previously served as Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Franciscan Health Crown Point, where, among other duties, he led the development of safety protocols and processes during the COVID-19 pandemic and developed a new dashboard for communicating quality improvements to the board. Prior to assuming that role, Dr. Mikaitis served as Medical Director of the Franciscan Health Accountable Care Organization in the northern Indiana and south suburban Chicago regions.

A board-certified Internal Medicine Physician, Dr. Mikaitis earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a Master of Business Administration from DePaul University, and a medical degree from Ross University.

Tom Shanley, MD, became President & Chief Executive Officer of Lurie Children’s on December 6, 2019. He is a pediatric intensive care physician and researcher who joined the organization in 2015 as Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and President & Chief Research Officer of the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Lurie Children’s.

Dr. Shanley champions the provision of and accessibility to the highest quality and most advanced pediatric healthcare delivered with respect and compassion. He is dedicated to achieving optimal health outcomes for children by focusing on evidence-based excellent care and further advancing care through discovery, innovation, and community collaboration.

After receiving his medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Dr. Shanley served as the pediatric chief resident at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He completed his clinical and research fellowship in pediatric critical care under the auspices of the Pediatric Scientist Development Program at the University of Michigan sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation.

As a clinician, Dr. Shanley specializes in the treatment of children with hypoxemic respiratory failure from acute lung injury and severe sepsis triggered by infection. The broad goal of his research, spanning from basic science to translational and clinical work, was to improve understanding of the molecular basis of inflammatory diseases that afflict critically ill young patients.

Dr. Shanley is committed to leading Lurie Children’s toward further growth in scale, scope and scientific discovery in order to transform child health and create a healthier future for every child.

A father of four grown children and husband to Maureen, a pediatric nephrology nurse, Dr. Shanley prioritizes spending time with his family and staying fit running and biking along the Chicago lake shore. He is an avid reader, often enjoying a glass of northern California wine with his book.

Dr. Omar Lateef serves as president and CEO of Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center. Rush has set the nation’s standard in health care quality and safety, modeled excellence in clinical leadership both regionally and nationally, and maintained its deep and long-standing commitment to health equity. Rush believes in serving its patients and communities by addressing the root causes of disease through strong partnerships and innovative research. 

Vizient ranked Rush University Medical Center No. 2 among 107 academic medical centers for quality and accountability in 2024 and has ranked Rush in the Top 5 for 11 consecutive years. The medical center has earned a spot on the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll six consecutive times. 

 Dr. Lateef was appointed president and CEO of Rush University Medical Center in May 2019, took on the role of president of Rush University System for Health in 2021 and became CEO of the system in July 2022.

A distinguished physician and academic leader, Dr. Robert A. Barish is currently the vice chancellor for health affairs of the University of Illinois Chicago.

In his current role, he oversees the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health), which provides comprehensive care, education, and research to train healthcare leaders and foster healthy communities in Illinois and beyond. A part of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), UI Health comprises a clinical enterprise that includes a 460-bed tertiary care hospital, 40+ care locations, and 11 Mile Square Health Center facilities, which are Federally Qualified Health Centers. With campuses in Chicago, Peoria, Quad Cities, Rockford, Springfield, and Urbana, the health system includes the academic and research activities of UIC’s seven health sciences colleges: Applied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, the School of Public Health, and the Jane Addams College of Social Work. UI Health is dedicated to the pursuit of health equity.

During the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Dr. Barish was named chair of the system-wide COVID-19 Planning and Response Team by the University of Illinois System President. This effort was established to help coordinate the system’s response to the virus among the three universities and the health enterprise. UI Health has been a significant contributor to the discovery, treatment, and care of COVID-19 patients throughout our communities across the state – distributing more than 180,000 vaccinations and providing community testing locations.

In 2019, Dr. Barish received The William Cullen Bryant Award – the highest honor from his alma mater, New York Medical College. He has served as the Chair of the Board of the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) since 2020. Most recently, in 2022, Dr. Barish was appointed to the Board of Directors for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). In the fall of 2024, Dr. Barish will be recognized by his alma mater, the University of New Hampshire with Award of Excellence for Outstanding Achievement for significant professional accomplishments and public service.

Prior to joining UIC, Dr. Barish served as chancellor of the LSU Health Sciences Center at Shreveport from 2009 to 2015, where he provided leadership for the schools of medicine, allied health, and graduate programs, a major academic medical center, and two affiliated hospitals.

Dr. Barish spent 24 years at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He served as chief of emergency medicine from 1985 to 1996 and built a nationally recognized program. He was named associate dean for clinical affairs in 1998 and eventually became vice dean for clinical affairs in 2005 .That same year, following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, Dr. Barish helped lead a medical regiment dispatched by the state of Maryland to deliver emergency care to more than 6,000 hurricane victims in Jefferson Parish.

After earning his medical degree from New York Medical College in 1979, Dr. Barish interrupted his residency training for one year to provide medical treatment to refugees at camps along the Thai-Cambodian border and in Somalia. He completed an internal medicine residency at New York’s Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in 1983 and an emergency medicine residency at Georgetown University Medical Center in 1985. Dr. Barish earned an MBA from Loyola College in 1995. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. A former lieutenant colonel and flight surgeon in the Maryland Air National Guard, Barish was among a select group invited to interview to become a NASA astronaut candidate in the early 1990s.