Mr. Neaman earned his M.S. in business and healthcare from The Ohio State University and began his career at Evanston Hospital as an administrative assistant after graduation in 1974. Within two years, he was promoted to assistant to the vice president of patient care services, then to a series of vice president positions within the hospital. In 1984, he was named president of Evanston Hospital and executive vice president and COO of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. He has served as president and CEO of NorthShore University HealthSystem since 1992.
Under his leadership, NorthShore has flourished. In 2003, the organization became one of the first healthcare organizations in the country to launch a system-wide electronic medical record system. Mr. Neaman has also become a national and community healthcare leader, serving as chair of the Healthcare Leadership Council from 2005 to 2006 and as a member of the Illinois Hospital Association from 1989 to 1994. He has received numerous recognitions for his dedication to healthcare, including the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award for Young Healthcare Executive of the Year from the American College of Healthcare Executive and On the Rise executive from Fortune Magazine.
In 2009, Mr. Neaman received the ACHE 2009 Gold Medal Award, an honor bestowed on “outstanding leaders who have made significant contributions to the healthcare profession,” according to ACHE.
In order to manage his four hospitals and over 9,000 employees, Mr. Neaman said that he relies on his large and reliable leadership team. He also believes in the importance of setting standards for his organization and consistently meeting them. “I have to monitor our progress by establishing measures of success,” he told the Journal of Healthcare Management. “We can’t know how close we are to the goals if we don’t measure our performance.”
Read more about Evanston Hospital on the Becker’s Hospital Review list of “America’s 30 Best Hospitals and 20 Best Community Hospitals.”
