Suzanne Richards

Suzanne Richards, RN, CHE, CHP, CPHQ is CEO of SMR Healthcare Management, Inc. in LasVegas, where she works as a health care consultant focusing primarily on hospital operations, owns and operates two home care companies in California and Nevada, and owns and operates an ambulatory surgery center in California. Prior to owning her own businesses, she had six years of successful leader-ship as the CEO of Healthcare Operations for KPC Healthcare, overseeing a group of seven acute-care hospitals. She also served as CEO during that time of its Southern California-based flagship hospital and regional trauma center, Orange County Global Medical Center. Prior to her appointment as CEO of KPCHealthcare, Ms. Richards served as the chief clinical officer for Prime Healthcare. Named Business-woman of the Year in 2017 by the Orange County Business Journal, Ms. Richards is an accomplished health care executive with a diverse background in management and direct patient care. Throughout her career spanning more than 25 years, she has added significant value to the organizations and people she has served. She is now providing innovative leadership and a strategic vision to KPC Health and its system of community hospitals. KPC funds approximately $47 million in Medi-Cal/Medi-Cal ManagedCare, and another $40 million in charity/indigent costs annually. In addition to her duties as a corporate and hospital CEO, in 2014 Ms. Richards was appointed by the CalOptima board of directors as the hospital representative to the Provider Advisory Committee, an agency ranked California’s top MediCal Plan by NCQA for 2014-15 with $3 billion in revenues serving over 500,000 members. In 2014, she was elected by her peers to serve as the Orange County Area Representative on the board of directors for the Hospital Association of Southern California and is currently its chairwoman. In 2015, Ms. Richards was selected by the Orange County Board of Supervisors to serve on an Ad Hoc Committee tasked with developing policy reforms to address Emergency Department overcrowding and the need for expanding Behavioral Health Crisis Stabilization services. She has served as CEO, COO and CNO at for profit and nonprofit hospitals in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Ms. Richards has experience with diverse medical groups, health plans, IPAs, workers’ compensation, case management, Medi-Cal, and healthcare legal consultation. She also has contracted with the county during COVID-19 pandemic to write and implement Alternative Care Sites. Ms. Richards is a former surveyor for The Joint Commission and has conducted accreditation surveys of health care entities throughout the U.S. since 2005. She is aRegistered Nurse (RN), a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ), a Certified HealthcareExecutive (CHE), a Diplomat and Fellow of the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians (CHCQM), a Certified HIPAA Professional (CHP), a Fellow of the American Institute of Healthcare Quality (FAIHQ), and a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives(FACHE). Ms. Richards is a member and/or leader of multiple associations, including the March of Dimes LA Market and the chair of the board of trustees for American University of Health Sciences. She currently teaches strategic planning and population health for the graduate program at California StateUniversity Long Beach, and she is a frequent speaker on health care issues and trends. Ms. Richards received her B.S. in nursing from the California State University, Fullerton and spent the majority of her clinical career as an intensive care unit nurse. She received her Master of Public Health (MPH) with an emphasis in biostatistics from Loma Linda University and her M.B.A. from the University of California,Irvine in its Healthcare Executive Program.