06-09-2024 HOF - Flipbook - Page 13
Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 9, 2024
PATRICIA M.C. BROWN
P
atricia M.C. “Patty” Brown was ready to retire early nearly five years
ago, or so she thought.
The health care regulatory lawyer had wrapped up a 30-year career
at Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2019 when she agreed to become a parttime senior adviser for a Boston startup.
Months later, as a novel virus began infecting millions of people and
sending them into quarantine, the company’s central premise took on
unexpected significance. Medically Home was commercializing technology that allows acutely
ill patients to be hospitalized in their homes, following a model of care created over the years
at Hopkins.
“I was in retirement. I was going to do some consulting … and suddenly COVID hit,” Brown
said. “The idea of hospitalizing patients in their homes
Name: Patricia M.C. Brown
Age: 64
Hometown: Bronx, New York,
through age 6; Lutherville
Current residences: Severna
Park; Federal Hill
Education: Maryvale Preparatory
School; University of Richmond,
B.A. political science and sociology;
University of Baltimore, J.D.
Career highlights: Vice president
of payor strategy, Kennedy Krieger
Institute; senior adviser, Medically
Home; senior vice president of
managed care and population
health, Johns Hopkins Medicine;
president of Johns Hopkins
HealthCare; senior counsel of
Johns Hopkins Health System;
assistant attorney general,
Maryland Office of the Attorney
General for the Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene
Civic and charitable activities:
Chair of the board of Maryvale
Preparatory School; board
member, The Center Club;
treasurer/board member,
Listening Hearts Ministries;
member of board of trustees,
Health Services for Children with
Special Needs, a managed care
plan owned by Children’s National
Hospital in Washington; former
chair of United Way of Central
Maryland
Family: Married to Joseph Gill; two
stepdaughters; one grandchild
during COVID took off.”
Brown strongly believed in the “hospital at home”
model, developed in the geriatrics department at
Hopkins, where she served for more than a decade as
senior vice president of managed care and population
health. At Hopkins she had also been president of Johns
Hopkins HealthCare, the insurance arm, and senior
counsel of Johns Hopkins Health System.
The “hospital at home” model works for “people
[who] don’t want to go to the hospital, don’t have to
and shouldn’t. You can do so much in the home,” Brown
said. “It’s a complete transformation of health care
delivery, from facility-based orientation to home and
community-based orientation.”
By the end of 2020, the federal Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services launched a national program
authorizing hospitals to offer at-home care, and more
than 350 facilities now either offer or seek to offer the
option. Brown believes that 30% to 40% of hospital
admission ailments can be treated or monitored at
home.
With a legal, not medical, background, Brown had
long viewed her mission as helping to improve patient
and community care by shaping health systems and
policy. Those were her goals at Hopkins and Medically
Home, where she’s still a senior adviser.
More recently, the 64-yearold Severna Park resident has
found yet another outlet, in
January taking on the role
of vice president of payor
strategy at Kennedy Krieger
Institute. The Hopkins affiliate specializes in treating
children with cerebral palsy,
Down syndrome, spina bifida
and other diseases, injuries
and disorders.
She has been tasked with
helpingtodeveloparesearchbacked next-generation
model of care for Kennedy
Krieger. That entails working
with insurers to put in place
policies designed to cover
treatments and caregiving
that patients need.
It’s not surprising to those
who know Brown or even to
herself that she hasn’t slipped
quietly into retirement.
“It was always a part of
me that I knew I was here
to work, that’s what we’re
here to do,” said Brown, who
grew up in a Catholic family
in Lutherville and graduated
in 1978 from Maryvale PreparatorySchool,whereshenow
serves as board chair. Her
upbringing and high school
education was “all about
being there for others.”
For Brown, that has meant
carvingoutaparallelcareerin
community service, starting
whenshewasinher30s,busy
with a full-time job and, with
her husband, raising her two
stepdaughters.
Currently, she’s a member
of the board of The Center
Club, the private business
club at the top of 100 Light
Street in downtown Baltimore, and treasurer for
Listening Hearts Ministries,
a group developed by her
husband, Joseph Gill, that
teaches the practice of spiritual discernment.
One of her first such roles
beganmorethantwodecades
ago when she helped develop
a women’s business leader
initiative for United Way.
“Many of us became
friends around [a] common
passion of trying to help and
give back,” said P.J. Mitchell, a retired vice president
of global sales operations for
IBM who also worked on the
United Way initiative. Since
then, “we hitch each other
along to whatever we’re
working on at the time.”
Mitchell, a Center Club
past president and current
board member, described
Brown’s leadership style as
“collaborative and compassionate.”
“People are just naturally
drawn to her as a leader,
whether it’s accomplishing business objectives or in
support of a civic cause and
volunteerism,” Mitchell said.
“She’s just brilliant at leveraging the power of teams.”
Since retiring from
Hopkins in 2019, Brown
also has chaired Maryvale’s
board, and recently led
the search for a new president that led to the hiring
of Malika DeLancey, the
first person of color to lead
the school. Brown’s goal is
to ensure that the school
continues offering “a loving
environment focused on
teaching young girls to be
leaders.”
Brown, whose family also
owns a condo in Federal
Hill, became involved with
the Center Club because of
the importance she places on
having a city gathering spot
where business leaders can
work together.
“I walk into the Center
Club, and I see modern
Baltimore at its best,” Brown
said. “I see young people, old
people. …You walk in, you see
diversity everywhere. That’s
what our future city is. It’s
got to be this complete sense
of one community.”
— Lorraine Mirabella
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