Leadership

Managing Director

Kate.Lovrien@healthsystemadvisors.com

Kate is the Managing Director at Health System Advisors. Her experience in the healthcare industry spans twenty years, including nineteen years as a strategy consultant and four years in biotechnology. Ms. Lovrien’s consulting engagements have concentrated on system and organizational strategy, physician alignment and integration, ambulatory and market positioning, and novel partnerships in healthcare.  She is a frequent author and speaker on developing system strategies focused on growth, effectiveness, relevance and capabilities, physician alignment and ambulatory development.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Ms. Lovrien spent eight years with Kurt Salmon, where she created their physician alignment practice, infrastructure and thought leadership before moving back into a privately held practice with Health System Advisors.

Ms. Lovrien has an MBA/MHA from University of Washington.

VP Strategy

Luke.Peterson@healthsystemadvisors.com

Luke C. Peterson is Director of Innovation at Health System Advisors. His experience in strategy consulting to the healthcare industry spans twenty-five years. Mr. Peterson's consulting engagements have concentrated on system and organizational strategy and new ambulatory delivery models.  Having worked throughout the country for national healthcare systems, regional community systems and independent community hospitals, he understands the strategic challenges facing healthcare providers today. His client list includes the largest healthcare systems, leading community and referral hospitals, and progressive academic medical centers throughout the country.

He is a frequent author and speaker and has advised numerous regional health systems on their path to create the capabilities to remain relevant, effective, and growing in the future environment.

Mr. Peterson holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota in strategy and finance and is an avid runner.

Consultant

Ben Archambeau is a Strategy Analyst with Health System Advisors and is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He helps to support client engagements by synthesizing large scale quantitative data pulls and building out logical and innovative models. Ben has experience in financial projecting, implementation planning, and market research.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Ben completed his bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Outside of work, Ben spends time making and watching films, as well as exploring the Twin Cities through different running routes.

Consultant

David Chamberlain is an Associate with Health System Advisors and is based in Minneapolis, MN. David leads the facility and functional planning for HSA and provides senior leadership for projects where capital or strategic facility investments are a major part of the business plan.

Over his more than 20 years in healthcare David has worked with leading academic and community hospital systems to create the most efficient, effective, and streamlined ambulatory and inpatient facilities. With a keen focus on functionality, David brings the best practices and leading thinking to health system’s strategic facility projects.

Prior to working with Health System Advisors, David spent nearly 12 years at Kurt Salmon Associates and led their facility planning practice.

Manager

Denver Collins is a Manager with Health System Advisors and is based in Minneapolis, MN. Denver is responsible for working with client teams to understand their data and coordinating with project teams to support strategic recommendations. Prior to joining HSA, Denver was a strategy consultant with Baker Tilly, where he worked in a variety of industries, including consumer packaged goods, consumer financial services, and manufacturing. Denver’s projects focused primarily on consumer experience and go-to-market strategy. Denver graduated from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management majoring in Finance and Supply Chain-Operations. Outside of work, Denver enjoys biking and listening to great podcasts.

Associate

Robert Colvin is an Associate at Health System Advisors. He has over 25 years of experience leading hospitals and health systems, ranging from a 500+ bed academic medical center to for-profit facilities, suburban facilities and small rural hospitals. His experience includes operating a large multi-specialty physician group, regional ambulance services, home health agencies and community primary care clinics. He has also served as a Group Vice President for Quorum Health Resources (QHC).

Bob has chaired both the Georgia and the Idaho Hospital Associations, has served on the American Hospital Association’s Metropolitan Governing Council and is a Fellow in the American College of Health Executives. He has received the prestigious NOVA award from the AHA for his work in healthcare with the homeless. In addition, organizations under his leadership have been recognized by Fortune Magazine as among the 100 Best Companies to work for in America and by Consumer’s Digest as among the 50 safest hospitals in America.

Senior Consultant

Tom Erickson is Director of Operations with Health System Advisors and is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He helps support and coordinate strategic decisions while working with internal analyst teams and client work groups.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Tom worked in several different roles including consumer lending, commercial credit, and parts engineering.  Tom has extensive experience with process improvement and working in customer-focused environments. 

Tom received his Master’s in Business Administration from Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI. He also holds an undergraduate degree in Finance from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.  In his free time, Tom enjoys Olympic weightlifting and playing guitar. 

Senior Consultant

Prior to joining HSA, Daniel earned his bachelor’s degree in Industrial & Systems Engineering from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a minor in Management from the Carlson School of Management. Daniel works in collaborative teams from strategy to execution with a disciplined eye on impact and sustainability at every stage of the project life-cycle. In providing end-to-end support, Daniel helps to move beyond strategic recommendations to ensure clients build the capabilities required to achieve and sustain long-term improvement and measurable, bottom-line results. In his free time, Daniel can be found reading up on management theory, snowboarding in the Rockies, or bouldering at the local climbing gym. He also enjoys sport shooting and traveling both domestically and abroad.

Senior Analyst

Samantha Harding is a Senior Analyst with Health System Advisors based in Minneapolis, MN. Samantha completed her Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and English at the University of Minnesota, where she swam for four years, and continued on to acquire her Master’s degree in Pure Mathematics from the University of New Mexico, focusing primarily on algebraic structures and mathematical analysis. In her free time, Samantha enjoys walking her dog, open water swimming, and watching 80’s movies.

Associate Principal

Weston Johnson is a Principal with Health System Advisors and is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mr. Johnson is an experienced analyst and project manager who has provided market, financial and analytical services to a variety of clients. His experience in strategic planning, service line planning, practice rationalization and healthcare infrastructure planning allows him to bring a broad base of experience and abilities to his project teams.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Mr. Johnson spent thirteen years at Conventions, Sports and Leisure International, where he provided clients in the public, private and education sectors with market, financial and economic feasibility analyses related to public assembly facility development projects. This experience provides him with an ability to gain an in-depth understanding of his clients’ needs and deliver outcomes that meet those needs.

Manager, Director of Analytics

Ian Nohner is a Senior Strategy Consultant with Health System Advisors based in Minneapolis, MN. Prior to joining HSA, Ian ran an independent financial advising practice, specializing in working with medical professionals. Ian graduated from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a bachelor’s of science degree in Biology. Outside of work Ian enjoys running, cooking with friends, and guiding wilderness expeditions.

Associate Principal

Dr. Richardson is VP of Patient Care and Integration of Health System Advisors, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dr. Richardson’s work with Health System Advisors involves assisting hospital executives in understanding the spectrum of benefits for implementing modern urgent care from a medical perspective. Dr. Richardson is Board Certified in Family Medicine, a certified MRO, and holds certification in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. He has over 20 years’ experience in corporate wellness with clients spanning multiple industries. During the past 15 years as a physician, his areas of practice have included occupational medicine, urgent care, tele-medicine, and family medicine and has practiced in Virginia, Maryland, Florida, and Washington state.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Dr. Richardson was a Benjamin Banneker Scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park where he obtained an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology. He earned a Medical Degree from Spartan Health Sciences University Medical School and then completed his Family Practice Residency at the University of Florida-Shands in Jacksonville, Florida. Elective rotations included pain management, occupational medicine, neurology, and orthopedics.

VP Innovation

Brandon J. Robertson is Vice President of  Design and Innovation, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has over 8 years of experience in healthcare operations, ranging from hospital to non-hospital entities. Brandon’s expertise focuses on ambulatory asset strategy, design, development, implementation and management. He has opened numerous urgent care centers, occupational medicine clinics, and outpatient physical and occupational therapy clinics for programmatic and operational integration, which would drive increased outpatient market share, clinical quality and financial success.

He is a Six Sigma Black Belt who has trained multiple teams in the ways of Six Sigma and Lean methodologies in performance excellence, operations management, and quality assurance as it applies to the healthcare industry.

Brandon holds a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Colorado in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Healthcare Administration.

Financial Analyst

Ashley Rugel is a Financial Analyst with Health System Advisors, based in Minneapolis, MN. She is an experienced analyst with a history of working in the hospital and healthcare industry. Ashley Graduated from Chippewa Valley Technical College with a degree in Business Management. Prior to joining HSA, she worked in pharmaceutical analytics at Target Headquarters independently managing open receivables for unmatched claims. In her free time, Ashley enjoys spending time with family and exploring the outdoors.

Consultant

Steven Taylor is an independent consultant with Health System Advisors and is based in Utah. His experience in the healthcare industry spans 43 years holding the positions of CFO and COO in small, medium and large hospital systems as well as independent hospitals. He spoke at HFMA's Annual National Institute on the topic of 340B in Critical Access Hospitals.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Mr. Taylor spent 12 years at Catholic Health Initiatives where he was CFO for the Fargo Division of CHI. He has also been CFO at a number of other critical access hospital‘s and chief financial officer at Columbia Regional Hospital in Columbia, Missouri, as well as Controller for Park Plaza Hospital in Houston, Texas. He began his healthcare career with Humana when it was the hospital company where he progressed from financial trainee to controller.

Mr. Taylor earned his MBA from Brigham Young University Graduate School of Management as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology.

CEO

Mitch Traczyk is a Senior Manager with Health System Advisors and is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He helps to support and coordinate strategic decisions while working with internal analyst teams and client work groups. Mitch works to support clients in various types of healthcare strategy with experience in service line planning, market alignment, and implementation planning.

Prior to joining Health System Advisors, Mitch completed his bachelor’s degree in finance at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and holds a Masters of Business Administration in product management from Boston College. Additionally, Mitch is an avid runner and car enthusiast.

Senior Marketing Analyst

Clare Umberger is a Senior Marketing Analyst with Health System Advisors based in Minneapolis, MN. She earned her BA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, focusing in interdepartmental studies and marketing. Prior to joining HSA, Clare interned in NYC for a solar tech company and a non-profit. She also worked for ImOn Communications in Cedar Rapids, IA where she created workflows and launched email campaigns. Clare enjoys traveling and teaching dance.

Consultant

With over 26 years of leadership experience in ambulatory healthcare, Mike West serves as an Associate with Health System Advisors. In his native New Mexico, he worked in rural FQHC senior leadership roles and Vice President roles in one of the largest market leading integrated healthcare systems: Presbyterian Healthcare Systems. As Chief Operating Officer for Centura Health Physician Group, he was accountable for ambulatory sites throughout Colorado and Western Kansas. Mike’s career has encompassed attaining national best practice results via dyad leadership structures in managed care, as well as fee for service oriented operational environments. Mr. West earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Based in Colorado, Mike is an avid fly fisherman and served on the 2016 FIPS Mouche World Fly Fishing Tournament Sector Judge team.