James A. Cohick, formerly Executive Vice President of CURE International, has now joined Shriners Hospitals for Children as Administrator. Cohick lived for three years in Kenya, where he opened and ran the first children’s rehabilitation, teaching, and specialty surgery hospital in Africa. Upon returning to the US, Cohick oversaw management operations for subsequent hospitals in the growing network. Most recently he oversaw the CURE First Step Program, part of a global initiative for addressing clubfoot. As part First Step, he participated on the Medical Rehabilitation Guidelines expert committee convened by the Disability and Rehabilitation office of the World Health Organization.

Before joining CURE, Cohick served at several US-based healthcare corporations providing free-standing rehabilitation hospitals. His skills with both children and rehabilitation make him extremely useful to Shriners’ mission of providing the best in pediatric orthopedic and neuromuscular surgery and rehabilitation at no charge.

Cohick has Diplomate status and is a certified Healthcare Executive with the American College of Healthcare Executives. He has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University.

The Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence has named William T. Foley, President and CEO, Provena Health, to their Board of Trustees for 2006. The Lincoln Foundation seeks to help Illinois organizations continuously improve their performance by encouraging, developing and highlighting excellence among five sectors: industrial enterprises, service providers, health care organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies.

"I am honored to represent The Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence, as a member of their Board of Trustees," says Foley. "Performance excellence is a vital component to the success of all organizations, encouraging these efforts as a member of the Lincoln Foundation board will be a gratifying opportunity that I am looking forward to."

The Midwest Business Group on Health announced today that Larry S. Boress, has been named to the position of President & CEO. MBGH is a Chicago-based, non-profit business coalition of over 70 large employers addressing the quality and cost of health benefits and their link to the health and productivity of workers.

Mr. Boress has served MBGH in numerous capacities for the past 15 years, beginning as Director of Membership, acting as Executive Director of the Chicago Business Group on Health, and presently serving as Vice President.

Mr. Boress has a Masters in Public Administration from Roosevelt University, a Bachelor of Arts from Northern Illinois University, and attained the Certified Association Executive designation from the American Society of Association Executives. He has been active on the local and national levels, presently serving as a member of the NCQA Purchasers Advisory Council, the Executive Committee of the Chicago Patient Safety Forum and the Illinois Chamber’s Health Policy Committee.

He has been involved in developing national policies and programs as MBGH’s representative to the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project; a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee to Evaluate Quality Improvement Organizations; and a member of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s CAHPS Advisory Board. He recently was invited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to assist in developing a consumer website for the new Medicare Part D program. Finally, Larry has participated as a speaker at numerous local and national conferences, as well as serving on a variety of industry advisory committees.

Prior to coming to MBGH, Mr. Boress spent 17 years at the Illinois State Medical Society, managing programs and projects for physicians, evaluating legislative proposals and serving as ISMS’ representative to other professional groups and State of Illinois’ licensure and regulatory agencies.