Detroit Medical Center CEO Brittany Lavis has been elected chair of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) for 2026-27.
“I understood early that health care is not simply an operating system,” Lavis said in her acceptance speech during the recent MHA membership meeting. “My mother began as an OB nurse, my eldest sister as an emergency department nurse, and my youngest sister now serves as the chief health services technician and clinic supervisor in the Coast Guard. Health care is a relationship, it is trust, and it is compassion and care that exceed the four walls of our institutions.”
Lavis says she chose to take a different health care path than her family: finance and health care administration. She said that expertise — particularly working in community hospitals and at safety net hospitals in Atlanta and Detroit — has helped her balance financial pressures with investments in nurses, physicians, technology, facilities, access, prevention, and community health.
“When finance serves mission, it becomes one of the most powerful tools we have to strengthen care delivery for the clinical teams who serve our communities and to create lasting value for the communities that rely on us,” Lavis says.
The MHA board directs the Lansing-based association’s statewide representation of hospitals and healthcare providers. Elected by the MHA membership, Lavis began her term July 1.
As MHA board chair, she says she envisions moving away from the safety net connotation for many of Michigan’s hospitals, instead building a safety foundation, what she calls community infrastructure, for hospital systems challenged by competing pressures.
“Community infrastructure is what exists when hospitals stop seeing themselves solely as providers of care and begin embracing their role as builders of healthier communities,” she says. “That is the vision that will guide my tenure as chair. We do not begin from scratch. We build upon a strong foundation created by previous leaders.”
Additional officers elected to the 2026-2027 MHA Board of Trustees during the meeting include Kent Riddle, chair-elect, president and CEO, Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation, Grand Rapids; and Jeremiah J. Hodshire, treasurer, president and CEO, Hillsdale Hospital. Bill Manns, president and CEO, Bronson Healthcare Group, will remain an officer as past chair. Brian Peters was reappointed to serve an indefinite term of office as CEO of the association.
