HJNO Sep/Oct 2024

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  SEP / OCT 2024 39 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalNO.com Frank A. Folino, FACHE School-Based Health Services, Kawana Ripoll, LCSW; and Michele Lagarde-May, MD, have been named 2024 Health Care Heroes by New Orleans CityBusiness . Health Care Heroes honors healthcare nurses, physicians, professionals, and volunteers in the New Orleans area for their industry achievements and community involvement. “I’m beyond proud of our associates who have been named 2024 Health Care Heroes,” said Michael Griffin, MSPH, DSc, FACHE, president and CEO of DCHC. “We see their dedication to the community every single day and it's an honor to have New Orleans CityBusiness also recognize their contributions and leadership in healthcare.” Health Care Hero honorees will be celebrated at an in-person event from 4-6 p.m. on Oct. 7 at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Tulane Given Grant to Pioneer Sex-Based PrecisionMedicine M. A. “Tonette" Krousel-Wood, MD, the Jack Aron Chair in Primary Care Medicine and the director of the Center for Health Outcomes, Implementation and Community Engaged Sci- ences (CHOICES) at Tulane University, and Franck Mauvais-Jarvis, MD, director of Tulane's Center of Excellence in Sex-Based Biology & Medicine, will use the grant to investigate how differences in sex and gender can impact health outcomes and shape new treatments. If a man and a woman each suffer a heart attack, you may assume the symptoms and diagnoses should be the same. That’s not always the case. While men are more likely to show the more “typical” signs of a heart attack — chest pains, shortness of breath — women are more likely to experience pain in their necks or symptoms that feel like heartburn or nausea. An angiogram that shows a blockage in male blood vessels may not show occlusion in a woman’s smaller vessels, and these differences can lead to misdiagnoses or lack of treatment. Tulane University has received a five-year, $11.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a Center of Biological Research Excellence (COBRE) in Sex-Based Pre- cision Medicine. The center will explore the dif- ferences between biological sexes and genders, investigate how those differences can impact medical outcomes, and potentially help shape specialized treatments. The COBRE will fund a wide spectrum of inno- vative research involving investigators from across the university. This includes a first-of-its-kind investigation of how biological sex and estro- gen impact pneumonia infections — and why women are more susceptible. Researchers will also work to engineer sex-specific, miniaturized models of human tissues and organs to study sex differences in diseases without the need for ani- mal models. LHA Announces 2024- 2025 Board of Trustee Officers, BoardMembers The Louisiana Hospital Association announced its 2024-2025 Board of Trustee officers and newly- elected board members during its annual mem- bership meeting on July 22. Rene J. Ragas, FACHE, president and CEO of Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, will serve as the LHA Board of Trustees chair. He received the gavel from MaryEllen Pratt, FACHE, CEO of St. James Parish Hospital in Lutcher, who will now serve as immediate past chair. Michele Kidd Sut- ton, FACHE, president and CEO of North Oaks Health System in Hammond, will serve as the association’s chair-elect, and Edgardo J. Tenreiro, FACHE, president and CEO of Baton Rouge Gen- eral, was elected treasurer. In addition to the officers, the LHA Board of Trustees added new at-large trustees. E.J. Kuiper, FACHE, president & CEO of Franciscan Mission- aries of Our Lady Health System in Baton Rouge; Sean Wendell, CPA, CEO of Beacon Behavioral Partners in Baton Rouge; and Kemp Wright, vice president of hospital operations at Priority Hospi- tal Group in Bossier City, were elected as at-large trustees for a two-year term. Jaf Fielder, presi- dent & CEO of Willis Knighton Health in Shreve- port, was reelected to serve a second term as an at-large trustee. The following individuals were newly elected to serve a two-year term as district trustees: • Central District: Monte A. Wilson, regional market president and CEO for CHRISTUS Health Central Louisiana. • Northwest District: Scott Prouty, chief oper- ating officer of Allegiance Health Manage- ment in Bossier City. • Southeast District: Lee J. Chastant III, CEO of West Feliciana Hospital in St. Francisville. Joan M. Coffman, FACHE, president and CEO of St. Tammany Health System in Covington, was reelected to serve a second three-year term as the Northshore district trustee. n Kawana Ripoll, LCSW Michele Lagarde-May, MD,