110th Anniversary - IOMC Leadership Awards & Annual Convening
Major Fundraising Goal $350,000
June 26, 2025
5:00 - 8:00 PM CT
Maggiano's -Chicago
Grand Ballroom
Cocktail and Business Attire
Valet parking available. SpotHero for other convenient parking.
Sponsorship | Leadership Awards | News Release | Program *,**,***
2025 Leadership Awards - nominations are being accepted through April 23, 2025., visit here.
Check out the previous Leadership Winners here>
The 110th Anniversary will celebrate the Institute's pioneering efforts in health equity, its accomplishments, and its look to the future. As evident in our news and communities, our work is not completed in advancing health equity. Join us in our relentless efforts to create social change and reduce healthcare disparities.
David Ansell, MD, MPH - We are honored to have Dr. David Ansell, MD, MPH as our Keynote Speaker for this momentous occasion. His efforts in health equity work, addressing patient dumping, and leadership has spanned decades.
Festivities- The evening will include announcing the new Board of Governors 2025-2026, recognizing the Class of 2025 Fellows and all Billings Fellows, and honoring the 2025 Leadership Award recipients. Please join us in 'advancing health equity by reducing healthcare disparities.' The evening includes thanking the 2024-2025 Board of Governors for their leadership, commitment and mission - centric efforts.
Live Music - Traysee Leonard - The Sax Therapist
Traysee J Leonard, known as the “The Sax Therapist,” is a self-taught saxophonist from Chicago. Traysee became involved in music at an early age, singing and playing saxophone at church and school. The moment he picked up the sax, the two were inseparable! “Melodies, I always enjoyed the melodies…. there’s nothing like a beautiful melody!” he goes on to say. Traysee played at church from the beginning and never gave up his love for inspirational and gospel music. Traysee is known as “The Sax Therapist” because his music soothes your mind, body, and soul!
Emcee - Rob Johnson
Johnson is a media and communications consultant who was previously a news anchor at WBBM-TV in Chicago for over thirteen years. His experience includes WLS-TV, KALB-TV, KLKY-TV, KATV, and KPRC-TV. IOMC is honored that he will lead the evening program.
Keynote Speaker Bio - David Ansell. MD, MPH
David A. Ansell (born 1952) is a Chicago-based physician, social epidemiologist and author. His efforts at both the national and local levels have advanced concerns about health inequities and the structure of the US health care system. His years as a provider to the medically underserved have made him a vocal supporter of single-payer health care.[1][2] He spent seventeen years at Cook County Hospital currently known as John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County upon which the medical T.V. drama ER was based. Ansell was inspired by his time at Cook County Hospital to write a memoir and social history entitled, County: Life, Death, and Politics in Chicago’s Public Hospital. County was hailed as a "landmark book" by Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune, aiming "to inform and to inspire" readers about the disparities in health care. In the book, Ansell argues that only a single-payer solution that provides access to all US residents regardless of circumstances can provide relief for those closed out of the health care system.[3]
Efforts against patient dumping
In the mid 1980s, Ansell and colleagues noted a marked increase in the numbers of patients transferred to public hospitals around Chicago and the US, due to a lack of health insurance. This practice is known as patient dumping. In 1984, Ansell joined a project led by Robert Schiff], M.D., to expose patient dumping in Chicago.[5] He contributed to the article "Transfers to a Public Hospital" that appeared in the February 1986 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, criticizing patient dumping and the unnecessary deaths it caused. Efforts against patient dumping like this eventually led to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which made the emergency transfers of patients illegal.[6]
Health Inequity Work
Ansell founded and directed one of first programs in the US to battle race-based disparity in health care, the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program at Cook County Hospital, in 1984. In 1995, Ansell left Cook County Hospital to become Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine of Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago, the city's largest private safety-net hospital. Among other activities at Mount Sinai, in 2002 he founded the Sinai Urban Health Institute[7] a major health-disparity research and intervention center along with the late Steven Whitman, PhD who served as its director. In 2006, he and Dr. Whitman helped expose the racial breast cancer mortality gap in Chicago in an article they published. In response, they joined with others to found the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Taskforce, a group dedicated to eliminating this disparity in the Chicago area.[8][9]
In 2015, Ansell helped found the DePaul-Rush Center for Community Health Equity a Chicago-based health equity educational and research center based at DePaul University and Rush University Medical Center.[10]
Full bio here>
Courtney Avery Davis, MPH, President 2024-2025, Billings Fellow, IOMC
Currently serving as the 2024–2025 President of the Board of Governors Mrs. Avery Davis has served on the Board of Governors for the past three years. In addition, she also served on the Program Committee (Chair 2024-2025), Advancement Committee and Nominating (2022 Co-Chair) Committee.
Avery Davis is the Founder and President of ARC Equity Consultants, LLC. A boutique public policy and crisis communications firm which advises health care organizations respond to communication challenges, maintain their brand reputation and smartly respond to government entities.
As the previous Administrator with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, Avery Davis has nearly two decades of leadership and experience providing oversight and management of $3 billion in health care infrastructure and capital improvement projects.
Avery Davis holds a Masters of Public Health degree with a focus on Health Administration from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Health Services Administration from Sangamon State University.
Neli Vazquez Rowland, President - Elect, Billings Fellow, IOMC
Neli Vazquez Rowland is a lifelong advocate of holistic wellness, dedicating her life to integrating physical, mental, economic, and spiritual health into every aspect of her work.
As the co-founder of A Safe Haven, Vazquez Rowland has led the effort to help transform the lives of over 140,000 individuals experiencing homelessness by applying a whole-person approach to healing. Her belief that true recovery begins with restoring health at every level—body, mind, and soul—has shaped a person-centered, vertically integrated multidisciplinary model designed to empower people to acquire the tools they need to achieve their highest level of independence, self-sufficient and thrive as they learn and commit to living in recovery.
Having served on the Board of Governors for five years, with two years on the Executive Committee as the President-Elect and Secretary, Vazquez Rowland was elected to serve as the President from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. She has a bachelor’s degree in business finance from Loyola University Chicago and has completed a minority executive program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Tickets
$195.00 Members - Billings Fellows, Fellows and Associate Fellows *,**,***,****
$235.00 Non-members (Guests) *,**,***,****
$3000.00 Table of Eight with Special Benefits (Sponsorship) *,**,***,****
Click on the Blue Register button in the left kiosk to register for the event.
Thank you to our Sponsors
Friend Level
Innovator Level
Supporter Level
Table Sponsors
Sponsorships Available - Support IOMC's mission- download sponsorship brochure.
Contact Courtney Avery Davis, MPH or Deborah Hodges, MA-IDS to obtain information on sponsorships, tables and more at sponsorship@iomc.org.
*Tickets are non-refundable as of June 19,2025
** By attending this event, you are consenting to photos that may be used in communications.
*** Reservations accepted through June 19,2025
****All substitutions must be of comparable level.
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