Alumni Spotlight: Seth Edwards

Seth Edwards, MHA ’10, has established a successful career at Premier, Inc. since starting there in 2009 as an intern during his MHA Program. As an MHA Student, Seth interned at Premier’s Washington D.C. office, performing healthcare policy research and supporting advocacy activities. After his internship, he was hired full-time as a lobbyist with a focus on the Senate and White House.

Due to his outstanding work, dedication, and a little luck, Seth has quickly worked his way up the chain of command to his current role, Director of the PACT Population Health Collaborative. Throughout his career, Seth has received multiple team and individual awards, including six Premier Value Team Awards, which he “values much more than the individual awards.” His peers describe him as a “superstar,” “life saver,” “and generally a very special, wonderful guy,” which led to Seth being selected as the 2014 Premier Values Award winner, or one of the Employees of the Year out of over 1,600 employees.

Seth’s breadth of knowledge in his field is immediately evident to anyone speaking with him. He has focused on policy, population health management, and reimbursement programs. In his role of Director, Seth supports Premier member hospital, health systems, and integrated delivery systems with population health management. As a part of that work, Seth supports members with applications to the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), ACO Pioneer program, Next Generation ACO model, and other population health initiatives from CMS. His leadership of this work as well as the PACT Population Health Collaborative contributes over $5 million in annual revenue. Seth believes that one should pick an area to focus on, become an expert in it, and, therefore, become indispensable. According to Seth, “your MHA is the foundation of knowledge; use it in your career but continue to grow. In order to be successful, one must possess the skills of teamwork, ownership of output, the ability to take complex tasks and communicate them in simple terms, and staying on top of trends in healthcare.”