Yale New Haven's Gayle Capozzalo of Guilford elected to national healthcare post

3/21/2011 — Guilford resident Gayle Capozzalo, executive vice president of strategy and system development at Yale New Haven Health System, has become Chairman-Elect for the American College of Healthcare Executives. Capozzalo has been an ACHE governor since 2007, and served as the ACHE regent for Connecticut from 2004 to 2007. The American College of Healthcare Executives is an international professional society of more than 35,000 healthcare executives who lead hospitals, healthcare systems and other healthcare organizations.

At Yale New Haven Health System, Capozzalo is responsible for the growth and diversification strategy, clinical and operational integration, performance management and other corporate services of the health system. YNHHS is Connecticut's leading healthcare system and a major regional multi-hospital system in Connecticut, with annual revenues in excess of $2 billion. YNHHS, which has nearly 14,000 employees and 5,000 physicians, discharges almost 90,000 patients and handles more than a million outpatient encounters a year. YNHHS includes four delivery networks - Yale New Haven, Bridgeport and Greenwich hospitals and Northeast Medical Group - and other clinically-affiliated organizations, including Westerly, Lawrence & Memorial, Bristol and Sharon hospitals.

Capozzalo joined YNHHS in 1997, having previously worked as senior vice president, organizational development at the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word Health Care System in Houston, Texas, and senior vice president of SSM Health Care System in St. Louis, Missouri.

Capozzalo received her BA from the University of Maryland, and her MS in public health, with a concentration in health planning from the University of Missouri-Columbia's department of health services management.

She has served on numerous boards and committees and is currently a member of two YNHHS hospital boards: Greenwich and Bridgeport hospitals, chair of VHA Northeast's board. In addition to her ACHE position, she is a member of the American Hospital Association's Society of Healthcare Planning and Marketing and a member of the American College of Health Care Marketing.

She is a faculty member of Yale University's department of epidemiology and public health, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Boston, MA, and an adjunct faculty member at St. Louis University's Center for Health Services Education and Research.

Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), part of Yale New Haven Health, is a nationally recognized, 1,541-bed, not-for-profit hospital serving as the primary teaching hospital for the Yale School of Medicine (YSM). Founded as the fourth voluntary hospital in the U.S. in 1826, today, YNHH has two New Haven-based campuses, and also includes Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital and Smilow Cancer Hospital. YNHH has received Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the nation’s highest honor of nursing excellence. YNHH has a combined medical staff of about 4,500 university and community physicians practicing in more than 100 specialties. www.ynhh.org