For the past several years, the MaryEllen Reilly Leadership Award has recognized leaders at HUP who demonstrate “many of the leadership characteristics that MaryEllen was known and respected for,” said Regina Cunningham, PhD, RN, the CEO of the hospital. “She was both a trusted colleague and a mentor to hundreds of staff.” Reilly was HUP’s former VP of Clinical and Administrative Operations, who died unexpectedly in 2011.
This year’s award recipient was Aron Berman, assistant executive hospital director, whose leadership style, Cunningham said, is “very much like MaryEllen’s — collaborative, engaging and facilitative.”
For example, in replacing HUP’s food services supplier in 2019, “Aron demonstrated incredible patience, fortitude and skill” in choosing AVI Foodsystems and then partnering with leadership at AVI and HUP Finance to come to an agreement. Since bringing them onboard, patient ratings for HUP’s food service have improved, significantly in some cases.
When interacting with members of the teams he leads, “one of the most impressive things is not just that everyone knows him but that he knows them, he knows their names,” she said. “This is critical to helping us drive good outcomes. There’s a strong sense of camaraderie in his teams which I attribute to his leadership.”
Berman was also one of the three key leads in planning and bringing HUP-Cedar Avenue on board this spring, when HUP took over running the Emergency Department and inpatient care at the former Mercy Philadelphia. “He made sure it was a safe and effective transition from day one,” Cunningham said. “His leadership was pivotal and critical.”