Healthcare without borders: Creating a shared medical decision-making model to support global patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital

Author's Biography

Lindsey Kreutzer , MPH, is the Program Director of International Health at Northwestern Medicine. She oversees all International Health patient services. Furthermore, she focuses on expanding Northwestern Medicine’s outreach and footprint globally. She has extensive experience in operations and administration. Lindsey previously led the Northwestern Medicine Quality Innovation Center, where she focused on the implementation of innovative health system-level initiatives across Northwestern Medicine hospitals to improve quality utilising research-based methodologies. Lindsey holds a BA in political science, international studies and global health from Northwestern University and a master of public health in epidemiology and global health from Boston University.

M. Jeanne Wirpsa Jeanne Wirpsa, MA, BCC, HEC-C, currently serves as the Program Director of Medical Ethics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She oversees a robust clinical ethics consult service, with over 400 formal consults each year, from all areas of the hospital and medical specialties. The Medical Ethics programme embraces a preventive ethics approach by embedding in high-acuity clinical areas, collaborating on the programme and organisational level to address underlying causes of ethical concern, and providing education to clinicians to promote their ethical competency. Jeanne holds a BA in anthropology and religion from Kalamazoo College and a master’s in ethics from the University of Chicago. She completed the MacLean Clinical Ethics Fellowship at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she now serves a faculty specialising in the intersection of religion/culture, bioethics and medicine.

Gloria Frank , MS, is the Lead Self-Pay and Insured Coordinator of International Health at Northwestern Medicine. Gloria’s primary focus is patient care coordination and working alongside leadership and the finance team to oversee self-pay and insured patient coordination and operations. She also participates in process improvement projects within the department. Gloria has extensive research experience in health disparities and global health. Gloria holds a BSc in community health from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master of science in health policy and administration from Pennsylvania State University.

Rebecca Rodriguez is the Lead Embassy Coordinator of International Health at Northwestern Medicine. Her primary focus is to work alongside leadership and the finance team to oversee embassy patient operations. This includes leading a team of coordinators and interpreters. She also directly communicates with governments for Embassy-sponsored patient operations. Rebecca holds a BSc in organisational leadership and a minor in biology from Roosevelt University. She is currently pursuing a master in health administration. Additionally, Rebecca is bilingual, speaking Hindi/Urdu, and can communicate with East Asian International Health patients if needed.