Contact our leadership team for speaking engagements

Wendy D. Darwell is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State and its two regional entities, the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council and Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association.

The hospital associations represent the interests of more than 50 public and not-for-profit hospitals on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley. In this role, she advocates for hospitals' interests before the state and federal governments, provides expertise on a broad range of health policy issues and oversees membership and education services. She also directs New York State Department of Health-sponsored grant programs that assist uninsured consumers in enrolling in health insurance, provide regional coordination of population health activities and organize emergency preparedness efforts.

Prior to joining the Hospital Council in 2007, Ms. Darwell served for seven years as chief of staff to the late U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey, who represented portions of New York's Hudson Valley, Southern Tier, and Finger Lakes regions. In that capacity, she directed the congressman's legislative, media, and political operations. From 1994 to 2000, she served in several legislative and communications positions on Congressman Hinchey's staff, specializing in health care, appropriations, and community development policy.

Ms. Darwell is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Healthcare Financial Management Association. She also sits on advisory committees for the LIU Post School of Health Professions and Nursing and the Stony Brook University Master of Health Administration Program, and the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University. In 2011, she was appointed to Governor Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team workgroup on Program Streamlining and State/Local Responsibilities, which focused on reforming the state's Medicaid enrollment and eligibility processes and bringing the system into compliance with federal regulations.

Ms. Darwell earned a Master of Business Administration from the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from American University. A native of the Hudson Valley, she and her husband now reside in Miller Place, New York.

Janine Logan is vice president of communications and population health for the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State and its two regional entities – the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council (NSHC) on Long Island and the Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association (NorMet) in the Hudson Valley. She oversees and coordinates marketing/communications initiatives for these three associations, ensuring that the appropriate messages about hospitals and healthcare policy are delivered and understood by such targeted audiences as: the media, lawmakers, business and industry, government agencies, allied health associations, and the public. She also directs the Long Island Health Collaborative (LIHC), a population health-based initiative coordinated by the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council. LIHC is a coalition of 300 plus organizations, including hospitals, local county health departments, community-based organizations, health plans, academic institutions, schools and libraries, physician associations, and several businesses.

She previously served as assistant director of public relations for South Oaks Hospital, a comprehensive behavioral health care facility and its sister agency Broadlawn Manor, a skilled nursing facility. Prior to that appointment, she served as the public relations coordinator for the National Catholic Development Conference, a membership association for religious fund raising organizations.

She holds a master’s degree in Health Communications from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts from St. John’s University. Her public relations/marketing work has been recognized by regional and national peer organizations, especially for her efforts in the area of outreach and awareness. In 2012, she was awarded the Outstanding Association Achievement Award for excellence in health care communication from the Association of Association Educators, a subgroup of the American Hospital Association. She has earned several regional awards for her health promotion campaigns and communications initiatives. She frequently lectures and writes about health policy, legislation and regulation, population health, public health, and how the power of the narrative distills these complex and abstract concepts into the understandable. Accredited by the Public Relations Society of America in the practice of public relations, she serves on a variety of state, regional, and local task forces.

Kate McCale is the Senior Director of Policy and Members Services for the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council, the Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association, and the Suburban Hospital Alliance of New York State. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing peer committees that represent different disciplines of senior management and leadership at member hospitals. These committees serve as a forum for policy updates and a sharing of best practices among hospital leadership and staff. Ms. McCale is a highly-regarded expert on a range of health policy issues, including quality and performance improvement, workforce, nursing, community health, and corporate compliance. She works individually with member hospitals to sort out complex legislative and regulatory questions that might impact operations. Ms. McCale is adept at researching difficult and nuanced topics and finding resolutions for members. She previously served the associations as Director of Quality and Education. She previously worked as a Senior Health Planner for the Central New York Health Systems Agency which later merged with the Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) serving central New York, HealtheConnections. During her time with HealtheConnections, Ms. McCale worked on a variety of consulting projects for outpatient providers in the region and provided data analysis for large research projects examining access to care across the continuum but with a specific focus on emergency department utilization. A member of the American Public Health Association, she holds a master’s degree in Public Health from Drexel University.

Stacy Villagran is the chief operating officer of the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council, Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association, and Suburban Hospital Alliance. In this role she is responsible for providing direction to personnel, programs, activities, and operations of the organization. She oversees the New York State Department of Health-sponsored grant program that provides enrollment assistance in Medicaid programs for the aged, blind, and disabled populations, provides technical support to hospital members, and assists in monitoring developments at the state and federal level and developing plans to impact legislative and regulatory issues that directly affects member hospitals.

Prior to becoming chief operating officer, Ms. Villagran was the senior director of health insurance programs at the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council, where she was responsible for the growth and development of the health insurance programs division. She was responsible for developing policies and protocols, facilitating contract negotiations, managing a diverse taskforce, and implementing opportunities for staff development. Ms. Villagran participated in many successful advocacy efforts to ensure continued funding for these grant programs. In addition, she worked to establish a behavioral health workgroup that provided educational conferences with guest speakers from OMH and OASAS for hospital members.

Ms. Villagran is a member of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, where she has given several presentations, and is also a member of the Suffolk County DSS Commissioners Advisory Council. Ms. Villagran earned a Masters of Public and Social Policy from SUNY Empire State College and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from SUNY Stony Brook University.