Endoscopic Technician

Providence's Dr. Brian Chesebro named 'Visionary Changemaker' for environmental stewardship. Thursday, May 14, 2026 Award recognizes leadership driving innovation in healthcare sustainability and emissions reduction RENTON, Wash. [May 14, 2026] - Brian Chesebro, M.D., medical director of environmental stewardship at Providence, received the 2026 Visionary Changemaker award today at CleanMed, a national conference for leaders in healthcare sustainability. The award, given by Practice Greenhealth and Health Care Without Harm, is for trailblazing leaders who are driving transformation and innovation in the climate-smart healthcare movement. "It is an honor to be recognized by Practice Greenhealth and Health Care Without Harm for our work at Providence to create a healthcare system that benefits our patients and protects our planet," Dr. Chesebro said. "This award is a testament to the dedication of our entire environmental stewardship team, who are steadfast in driving focused innovation for positive change." A standout achievement by Dr. Chesebro is his landmark research on the environmental toll of commonly used inhalers and development of an innovative tool that makes their chemical and emission impacts easier to compare. The tool translates complex data on greenhouse gases used in metered-dose inhalers into practical information, allowing clinicians to consider safety, effectiveness, cost and patient needs in their usage. The comparison tool is publicly available through the Providence Center for Environmental Stewardship's Toolkits and Resources page as part of the organization's WE SHARE initiative. Dr. Chesebro's leadership and expertise has helped Providence make notable progress in chemical reduction and commitment toward carbon negative by 2030. Since 2019, Providence has reduced carbon emissions by 27 percent, volatile anesthetic gases by 75 percent and nitrous oxide emissions by 90 percent. "Dr. Chesebro is a key leader in achieving Providence's vision of Health for a Better World," said Beth Schenk, chief environmental stewardship officer at Providence. "It is wonderful to see his efforts and impact amplified through this award, and we're grateful to Practice Greenhealth and Health Care Without Harm for that acknowledgement. I look forward to Dr. Chesebro's continued leadership to help Providence steward positive change in healthcare." Visit the Providence Center for Environmental Stewardship for more information about Providence's commitment toward carbon negative.

Providence to participate in federally funded research for early detection of a behavioral health crisis. Thursday, May 14, 2026 Providence will recruit patients to help develop a new AI framework to manage and predict mental health crises, using an app and patient health records RENTON, Wash. [May 14, 2026] - Providence is joining a nationwide, federally funded research project to develop a Large Health Behavior Model, a new class of artificial intelligence designed to advance the prediction, prevention and management of mental health and substance use disorders. The Proactive Health Office of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has awarded a $17.9-million contract award under their EVIDENT initiative to Ksana Health of Eugene, Ore. to develop the model. Providence is partnering with Ksana to recruit up to 25,000 adult patients to participate in data collection to inform the model. "Research participants will download Ksana's health behavior app on their smartphone and participate in the app activities for three months," said Staci Wendt, Ph.D., director of research for the Providence Health Research Accelerator. "Participants will also consent to have their health records included in the project." Recruitment will begin this summer across Providence's seven-state footprint. All Providence patients 18 years or older, will be eligible to participate in the two-year project. Despite the enormous burden of behavioral health conditions, which contribute to an estimated 8% loss of annual GDP, the current tools for screening and early intervention are limited. Measurement-based care is rarely implemented in behavioral health settings, and the approaches that do exist rely heavily on the patient discussing their situation with their provider. Patients and providers then navigate a time-consuming trial-and-error process to find effective treatments, with clinicians often unable to reliably predict patient outcomes using clinical judgment alone. Providence, Ksana and other project partners want to change this by developing AI models trained on continuous behavioral data from smartphones and wearables, including patterns of physical activity, sleep, mobility, social connection, and language use linked to large-scale electronic health records. The approach draws on three converging technological advances: the ability to measure behavior at population scale through ubiquitous mobile devices, the aggregation of digitized medical records, and breakthroughs in foundation model architectures that can learn powerful representations from multi-modal data. "Behavioral factors are a leading cause in a large majority of patient conditions that the health care industry treats," said Bill Wright, Ph.D., chief research officer, Providence. "Given the proliferation of smart phones and watches, if we can harness the sensing capabilities of those devices and link behavioral signals to patient health records, we can build a new model of personalized, proactive behavioral health care. This innovation be a major component of the delivery model of the future." MedStar Health Research Institute of Columbia, Md., will recruit patients from its East Coast footprint to bring geographic diversity to the project. The University of Washington's Paul Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering will spearhead the computational modeling effort.

Providence delivers third consecutive quarter of operating gains. Monday, May 11, 2026 Following a positive second half of 2025, the health system continued its turnaround with $111 million in operating income in Q1 RENTON, Wash., [May 11, 2026] - Providence, a not-for-profit health system serving the Western U.S., today announced results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026. After years of significant headwinds across the health care sector, Providence has been executing a focused turnaround strategy that has delivered its third consecutive quarter of operating gains, including $111 million in net operating income in Q1. Over the past year and a half, Providence has taken deliberate steps to address the polycrisis facing health care in the U.S. by improving its operations, such as streamlining its leadership structure, reducing duplication of services, renegotiating commercial payer contracts and sharpening its focus on core services - including transferring ownership or partnering with others on non-core services. In addition, Providence has improved access to care, length of stay, productivity, expense management and other key operating measures. Together, these efforts are helping Providence build a more resilient and affordable delivery model, one that is well positioned to continue serving local communities in an era of inflation and reduced reimbursement. "I am deeply grateful for the momentum we have created at Providence," said Erik Wexler, president and CEO. "As we have made changes to strengthen our operations, our caregivers have kept the focus exactly where it belongs - on delivering high-quality, compassionate care for our patients. That commitment is paying off and allowing us to continue investing in our Mission, so we can be here for those who are most vulnerable for the long term." For the three months ended March 31, 2026, Providence reported growth in operating revenues, driven primarily by higher patient volumes, improvements in length of stay and increased productivity compared to the prior year. Inpatient admissions increased 5 percent, while case-mix-adjusted admissions also rose 5 percent. Operating revenues totaled $7 billion, up 6 percent year over year[1], reflecting increased volumes and improved rates, while operating expenses decreased 1 percent. Operating EBIDA and net operating income were $482 million and $111 million, respectively, representing improvements of $378 million and $360 million compared to the prior year. These results reflect operational improvements, revenue enhancement and expense management efforts undertaken across the system. Financial market performance generated investment gains of $34 million during the quarter. Remaining steadfast to its Mission, Providence invested $526 million in community benefit during the first quarter of 2026. "Thanks to the dedication of our 119, 000 caregivers and their commitment to focus and discipline, we have begun turning a corner - ensuring our Mission remains strong and Providence is well positioned to serve for the long term," said Providence CFO Greg Hoffman. About Providence Providence is a national, not-for-profit Catholic health system comprising a diverse family of organizations and driven by a belief that health is a human right. With 51 hospitals, more than 1,000 physician clinics, senior services, supportive housing and many other health and educational services, the health system and its partners employ more than 119,000 caregivers serving communities across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, with system offices in Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif. Learn about its vision of health for a better world at Providence.org. [[1]] Normalized to reflect the formation of partnerships related to its Home & Community Care entities in the first quarter of 2025.