Gavin Roberts, the chairman for Owensboro Health’s Board of Directors, was recently recognized at the state level during the Kentucky Hospital Association’s (KHA) 95th annual convention in Lexington by being awarded the organization’s Governance Leadership Award.

According to KHA’s website, the Governance Leadership Award is “to acknowledge individuals who have had a positive and sustainable impact on the quality of care in their communities.”

Roberts, 47, who was in attendance at the convention along with fellow OH board colleagues, said the recognition was surprising yet humbling.

“It was totally unexpected. I was under the impression that we were there to receive a Quality Award for Owensboro Health … which we’ve gotten … before,” he said, “… and then when it (came) up to these awards and my name was announced, I was like: ‘What the … ?’

“I was very honored,” Roberts said about receiving the accolade. “We have a great board — a very engaged board, lots of really, really talented people that serve on the Owensboro Health board as volunteers that spend a lot of their time, and effort and talents pouring into the Owensboro Health system.”

Roberts, who has been on the board of directors for over seven years, more than three of those as chair, was nominated for the award by Mark Marsh, OH’s president and chief executive officer, for Roberts’ ”unmatched dedication to the organization’s mission of healing the sick and improving the health of the communities it serves as a guiding principle in his leadership role.”

“In my 25-plus years as a hospital administrator, I have not worked with a more dedicated and community-minded board chair,” Marsh said in a release. “Gavin strives every day to identify ways that Owensboro Health can strengthen the overall quality of life for the entire region.”

Roberts, who has owned his own Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance agency locally since 2008, was one of the four directors appointed by the city government in 2017.

Though he said it wasn’t something he “sought out,” Roberts was “honored” to be asked and eventually came on board.

“… (My wife and I) have our youngest child who is a Type 1 diabetic, so we spent countless hours doing research and being involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,” he said. “It kind of fit in line with our personal family mission of picking out better health care for children ….”

Roberts said he wasn’t completely familiar with OH other than the nonprofit health system being the “largest employer west of Louisville in Kentucky” and that the organization had a number of different facilities throughout the region.

His knowledge on OH’s impact has since expanded.

“The more I became involved and engaged in the board setting, I quickly found out that it’s a much, much larger regional contributor than just (being) the largest employer,” Roberts said. “It’s an economic engine for our entire region; not only from an employment standpoint, but it’s imperative to have a great health system from an economic development standpoint for other businesses to look at a community.”

One of the major highlights during Roberts’ time, according to OH’s release, included his involvement in facilitating a multiyear partnership with Minnesota-based firm Optum to handle OH’s billing and information technology services, which officially took effect in April 2023.

“It was a strategic move,” Roberts said of the partnership. “… Optum is basically a vendor that we use to help us with (operating) our IT and revenue cycle aspects of Owensboro Health. They’re a vendor that we use to bring expertise at a much more technical level ….”

Throughout his tenure, Roberts said the world of health care has been challenging, particularly pointing out the worldwide coronavirus pandemic and uncertainty on how to navigate efficiently.

“During COVID, those were uncharted waters so nobody had ever been through anything like that including nurses, doctors, administration, CEO and CSO,” he said. “It was basically an all hands-on-deck team effort.”

But it was the passion and work he observed from OH staff members that kept Roberts motivated.

“… (The board) was truly a supportive role during COVID to give them the tools and the expertise of what they needed to be able to take care of, (in accordance with OH’s mission), the sick and improve the health of the communities we serve,” Roberts said. “Every board meeting we have, we verbalize the mission statement and make sure that, ‘Hey, this is the reason that we’re here.’ ”

Since being part of OH in some capacity, Roberts has enjoyed being involved with an organization that has team members’ dedicated to the work and the patients.

“… Knowing that they show up every every day no matter what’s going on at home, no matter what’s going on in their lives and they put 100% effort in caring for a community member … is very humbling to be able to witness,” he said. “… I’m proud to serve on the board.”