LEADERSHIP

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Aric Burke

Aric has more than eighteen years of ASC consulting, development, and operations experience. He is responsible for the overall vision and company operations, driving profitability, and the organizational structure and strategy of Atlas.

Prior to founding Atlas, Aric served as the West Market President for United Surgical Partners International (USPI), the largest ASC management company in the industry. As Market President, Aric was responsible for the development and operations of USPI markets throughout the Western US. During his five years at USPI, Aric grew the West Market to over 30 ASCs and three surgical hospitals performing over 150,000 cases annually generating over $450M in net revenue and $90M in EBITDA with more than 2,500 employees. He also worked closely with large not-for-profit health system partners to develop their ASC networks including Dignity Health in Phoenix and Las Vegas, Centura Health in Denver, and Carondelet Health in Tucson.

Prior to joining USPI, Aric served as Vice President of Consulting and Development at Health Inventures, a physician and health system consulting firm that specialized in developing and managing ASCs. While at Health Inventures, Aric worked with some of the largest and most successful health systems throughout the US to acquire and form ASC partnerships in their markets as well as projects to develop ASC and ambulatory facilities in the UK and Middle East.

Aric began his career as a Certified Public Accountant with Deloitte after earning an MS in Business Administration with a focus on accounting, and a BS in Business Administration with a focus on Finance, both from the University of Colorado.

General Counsel

Robert (Bob) Cohen, JD

Bob joined Atlas in May of 2021 after serving as national chair of the health care practice of a large law firm for close to 40 years.  He was heavily involved in the founding of Atlas and served as Atlas’ lead outside counsel prior to assuming the role as its General Counsel.  As General Counsel, he oversees all legal aspects for both Atlas and the ASCs which Atlas manages.  He also handles all ASC acquisitions and syndications.

In private practice, Bob was outside counsel for decades to some of the largest nonprofit health systems in the US.  His work on behalf of these systems included handling major acquisitions and affiliations as well as overseeing clinical joint venture arrangements and other physician strategies in multiple areas.  For several of his clients, Bob was integrally involved in the planning and execution of physician joint ventures strategies to develop market-wide networks of ASC and other ambulatory services similar to what Atlas now does. Under Bob’s leadership, Atlas approaches its health system partnerships and work on behalf of its nonprofit partners from the perspective of what is best for the health system and what he would negotiate for as health system counsel.   This approach begins with partnership documents that assure the controls and protections (e.g., tax exempt status) critical to health systems are a given (and not something to be negotiated for as is typically the case with other ASC companies).  Bob works closely on a continuous basis with the General Counsel and in-house counsel staff of our health system partners to assure that the underlying ASC joint ventures are structured in compliance with terms and conditions agreed to with the health system and that the ASCs are managed in a legally compliant manner.

Bob’s decades of transaction experience also allows Atlas to handle  ASC acquisitions and syndications on behalf of its health system partnerships in a highly efficient and cost effective manner particularly as to outside counsel expense.   Bob is a graduate of The University of Chicago law school.

Chief Operating Officer

Dan Jones

Dan has more than 25 years’ experience and substantial success in directing operations in large-scale hospital networks, community hospitals and development of service lines, physician partnership models, and the transformation of underperforming business units. Dan is skilled in M&A, P&L management, and Board Governance, as well as the development of service lines, physician partnership models, and the transformation of underperforming business units.

As Chief Operating Officer, Dan accelerates value within healthcare for both the patient and the physician by executing market performance to Atlas operating model and orchestrating Atlas Service Center support and integration with regional and center needs. Before joining Atlas, Dan was the Chief Executive Officer at St. Francis Medical Center, an urban trauma center in Los Angeles County, where he orchestrated the turnaround of a bankrupt hospital, taking the facility from negative EBITDA to over 15% positive margin in 12 months through medical staff alignment, improved operations and staffing, and cost containment. Additionally, he engaged trauma physicians, and orthopedic surgeons to reduce implant costs and improve clinical documentation achieving improved clinical outcomes and margin.

Dan holds a Master of Health Service Administration from Medical College of Virginia / Virginia Commonwealth University and a bachelor’s degree in economics and business from Randolph Macon College. Dan is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Chief People Officer

Cheryl Chisholm

Cheryl leads all aspects of Human Resources (HR) and oversees recruitment, compensation and benefits, leadership development, payroll, and service delivery for its 200+ corporate team members and our physician partners.

Prior to Atlas, Cheryl held leadership roles at Banner Health spanning patient relations, service excellence and human resources. As Associate Vice President-Corporate & Physician HR, she led an HR team of 100 that supported 17,000 Banner employees and 300 clinic locations in six states with responsibility for provider compensation, recruitment, clinician experience and development, and HR business partner teams. Chisholm also led HR for multiple large-scale acquisitions across several service lines, record-breaking provider recruitment, and a significant and sustained reduction in provider turnover through focused efforts on development and culture in partnership with leadership.

Cheryl holds a Master of Public Administration from the Keller Graduate School of Management. She is part of the national 2022 Rising Leaders Collective, an honorary program designed to recognize and support a select group of emerging women leaders.

Chief Revenue Optimization Officer

Heather Richards

Heather has more than 20 years of experience as a transformational and results-oriented leader. She leads Atlas’s payor strategy and operations as well as centralized Revenue Cycle Management services with a focus on developing value-based arrangements, optimizing revenue with managed care contracts, and delivering best-in-class revenue cycle results. Recognized as a leader in the industry and a champion of health care innovation, Heather has played an integral role in leading performance improvement of physician practices, ancillaries, and facilities. She also has deep experience and expertise in strategy, business operations, mergers and acquisitions across healthcare organizations.

Previously, Heather served in executive leadership roles working with Tenet Healthcare, United Surgical Partners International, Baylor, Scott & White, Source One Management, and MPOWERHealth. Her experience includes the development and execution of strategies to establish a comprehensive Value-Based Healthcare business unit to include a multi-state musculoskeletal specialty Clinically Integrated Network (CIN); Episodic care delivery and management services; Physician practice optimization solutions and GPO offerings; Data-driven solutions for improved client engagement and revenue cycle results for over 250+ facilities.

Heather has a master’s degree in business administration, magna cum laude, and a Bachelor of Science in accounting, magna cum laude from Husson University, Bangor, ME.

Chief Nursing Officer

Charity Cox-Hayden, RN

Charity has been operating as a nurse and nurse administrator since 2001. At Atlas, she is responsible for all service-related metrics within the company including oversight of all areas of quality, patient safety, and patient, physician and employee satisfaction.

Prior to Atlas, Charity was Regional Administrator for United Surgical Partners International (USPI), Inc., where she was responsible for complex multiple-site operations consisting of single and multi-specialty ambulatory surgical facilities and billing offices. Before USPI, Charity was the administrator for Surgical Management Professionals, providing administrative and clinical leadership for the ambulatory surgical facility with an annual volume of 3500 cases. She also spent time in a cardiovascular ICU and received a significant amount of acute-care training. She’s also worked at a neurosurgeon’s office while in nursing school, which gave her exposure to the business side of healthcare. She then moved into open-heart and neurosurgery ORs.

Charity holds a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Indiana University South Bend and a master’s degree in business administration with a focus in Healthcare Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University.

Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer

James Maguire, JD

James has a deep knowledge of the healthcare industry and healthcare law. As Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer at Atlas, he is responsible for creating an ethical culture focused on integrity and teamwork. In his role, he leads corporate ethics, compliance and privacy programs and fosters a culture and climate of sensitivity to ethical behavior within Atlas. Through his work, James has the opportunity to directly impact the cost of healthcare while increasing accessibility, quality, and satisfaction.

Prior to joining Atlas, James was the Director of Compliance at Aetna where he promoted and enforced compliance with state/federal laws and regulations and related-company policies affecting Aetna businesses and encouraged high business standards in order to achieve company objectives.

James received a law degree from Arizona State University.

Chief Medical Officer

Derek Mitzel, D.O.

Dr. Mitzel is a board-certified anesthesiologist with more than 20 years in the medical field. He oversees the daily operations of Banner’s ambulatory surgery centers, including the hiring and training of all healthcare physicians and keeping the facility safe and comfortable for all patients and visitors. Prior to his current role, he was president of Arizona Anesthesia Consultants, where he saw the operations of the 36-member group practice.

Dr. Mitzel received his medical degree from Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine of Midwestern University. He did an internship and residency at Ohio State University Hospital. He also has a Master of Health/Health Care Administration/Management from the University of Phoenix.

Senior Vice President, Strategy and Growth

Ryan Aldridge

Ryan is a leader in the industry, with over 15 years of demonstrated results driving revenue and enterprise growth with an emphasis on business development, healthcare sales, territory management, strategic market growth, contract negotiation, client relationship development and closing experience in health systems, providers, and medical technology. He has vast experience building business across a diverse customer base including C suite healthcare executives in joint venture partnerships and large integrated physician groups across multiple service lines. Ryan excels in creating win-win opportunities with shared value for health systems and physician group entities.

As the Senior Vice President, Strategy and Growth for Atlas Healthcare Partners, Ryan drives growth across the enterprise facility portfolio, leads health network strategy and IDN service line growth initiatives, sources health system and strategic partnerships, and oversees the physician customer experience program. To date, Ryan has helped Atlas achieve $213.2M in new revenue growth and 732 unique ASC day one, case one new physician starts from first quarter 2019 to third quarter 2022.

Prior to joining Atlas, Ryan was the Senior Director of Business Development at Banner Health where he successfully drove ASC facility growth and network expansion, using his expertise to develop and implement systems that insulate business for long term success. Prior to working with Banner, Ryan was a Senior Therapy Consultant with Medtronic Neuromodulation.

Ryan holds a Master of Business Administration, Healthcare Sector Management from W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and molecular biology from University of California Santa Cruz.

VP of IT, Chief Information Security Officer

Jon Hallgrimsson

Jon joined Atlas in 2018 with 20+ years of experience in enterprise architecture and design for Fortune 500 environments, including cloud services and virtual infrastructure. At Atlas, he leads the continual development and management of the Atlas IT and Information Security strategy, infrastructure, and services. He and his team create technology solutions that enable Atlas’s business to deliver high-quality care to our physicians, patients, and team members, while supporting the highest levels of financial responsibility. These solutions include the full spectrum of healthcare IT needs, including clinical applications, IT infrastructure, digital identity, Information technology security, and desktop/mobile solutions. He ensures that systems are effective, scalable, and secure as Atlas adds and integrates new ASCs and develops future Joint Venture partnerships. He also leads efforts to ensure Atlas optimizes systems and data from all sources, including clinical integration of data between Atlas and our joint venture healthcare system partners.

Before Atlas, Jon was the IS Manager of Engineering Services at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, where he was in charge of all network, cloud computing, enterprise storage, voice, and security infrastructure engineering for the national specialty care hospital system. Leading a team of 10 engineers, Jon developed enterprise architectures, and deployed large-scale projects, achieving a 15% reduction in annual infrastructure costs.

Jon holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Texas and a bachelor’s degree in technology management from Northern Arizona University.

VP, Marketing and Communications

Dylon MacEachran

Dylon has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare sales and marketing and B2B physician marketing and communications. She leads the marketing and communications strategy and execution for Atlas and is responsible for overseeing the company brand, health system partners ASC brands, and all marketing and communications activities.

Before Atlas, Dylon was the National Director for DispatchHealth, a growth stage start-up delivering high-quality urgent care at home. She was responsible for the coordination of go-to-market strategies for new clients, which included clinical integration, technical integration, payer landscape strategies, and marketing tactics. She developed and managed client programs for Baystate Health, Texas Health Resources, MultiCare Health System, Valley Health System, Blue Cross Blue Shield of OK, and Texas Health Aetna.

Before DispatchHealth, Dylon was Senior Director of Health System Marketing for Healthgrades, Inc., an on-line resource for consumers to find information to make more informed healthcare decisions. She led concurrent marketing programs for CRM and BI services, Quality Data and Analytics products, and on-line target marketing programs for the B2B healthcare market.

Dylon holds a Master of Business Administration and a bachelor’s degree in history from Colorado State University, where she earned a full athletic scholarship for swimming.