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The Hardenbergh Group Leadership Team

Daniel Hart

CEO
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About Daniel

As CEO of The Hardenbergh Group, Daniel oversees the company's strategy and operations to deliver the best possible experience to Hardenbergh clients. Daniel has more than 25 years of business experience in the healthcare and consulting fields, serving in leadership roles across start-up, middle market, and Fortune 50 companies. Previously, he served as CEO of ApolloLIMS, a Nashville-based laboratory information management system company. Prior to Apollo, he was President of YourCareUniverse, a wholly owned subsidiary of Medhost. Daniel has also held a range of sales and marketing leadership roles at Dell Technologies and worked as a consultant and analyst at the Sprectrem Group, a management consulting and market research firm.

Daniel has an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor's degree from Washington & Lee University. 

Donna Delevie

President, Professional Staffing
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About Donna

Donna oversees Hardenbergh's day-to-day business operations and is primarily responsible for attracting, retaining, and working with our Medical Services Professionals and supporting our client needs.  She joined the firm in 2008 to help with internal processes and business initiatives supporting the firm's business growth.  Since that time, Donna has been involved in or worked directly in every functional area of our business.  She values and finds the people side of her role the most enjoyable and enriching.  Donna brings more than 20 years of project, training and workforce management experience within both small and Fortune 500 organizations. Donna holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Business Administration.

In her spare time, Donna most enjoys spending time with her friends and family and it is always a bonus when that can be coupled with doing something fun and exciting while checking off the places on her travel bucket list.  

Sharon Beckwith

President, Peer Review & Clinical Quality Consulting

About Sharon

Sharon Beckwith has more than 25 years of leadership experience. Ms. Beckwith has cultivated a unique combination of experience in executive management as well as extensive expertise in physician peer review and medical staff management, working daily with hospital clients to understand and meet their medical staff, quality improvement, risk management and peer review challenges. Ms. Beckwith is a regular speaker at state medical staff service associations and NAMSS. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Mark A. Smith, MD, MBA, FACS

Chief Medical Officer

About Mark

Dr. Smith brings 30 years of clinical practice and hospital management experiences to his work with physicians and hospitals across the United States. He is a Clinical Professor of Surgery (Voluntary) in the Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Section at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. His area of interest is in treating patients with venous disorders.

Dr. Smith’s clinical practice as a surgeon and multiple roles in senior hospital administration make him uniquely qualified to assist clients develop solutions to their complex problems. He has expertise in system quality and performance improvement, peer review, ongoing and focused professional practice evaluation, management of deficient practitioner performance, criteria-based privileging, low volume practitioners, ED call and external focused review.

He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the Society for Vascular Surgery, and the Southern California Vascular Surgical Society. He is serving on the Committee for Political Action of the Society of Vascular Surgery. He also holds a certification as a quality professional, CPHQ, from the NAHQ.

Dr. Smith is a graduate of Jefferson Medical College. He received his general surgery residency training at the University of Kansas Medical Center and had Cardiac and Vascular Surgery fellowships at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Smith holds an M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix.

Donald Lefkowits, MD, FACEP

Executive Medical Director

About Donald

Dr. Lefkowits received his undergraduate degree, medical degree, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He began his career in Emergency Medicine in 1980 and has practiced at Rose Medical Center since 1984. During his tenure at Rose, Dr. Lefkowits served as a member of the hospital Board of Trustees, President of the Medical staff, Chair of the Credentials Committee, and Chair of the Peer Review committee. He supported hospital and medical staff functions by chairing fair hearings, providing crisis management and press interactions, and developing and nurturing physician leadership programs. As Medical Director of the Emergency Department, Dr. Lefkowits oversaw a growth in volume from 30,000 annual visits to 45,000. He put in place state of the art Cardiac, Stroke and Trauma alert programs and helped the Rose ED lead the way in programs to enhance ED throughput and patient safety and satisfaction metrics. In 2008, Dr. Lefkowits was honored in 5280, The Denver Magazine, as the Top ED Doctor in Denver. Dr. Lefkowits is Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine and currently serves as President of the Colorado Medical Board.

Lisa Velasco, MSM, LPTA, CPMSM, CPCS

Senior Director, Professional Services
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About Lisa

Lisa Velasco joined The Hardenbergh Group in 2020 as Director of Professional Services. She brings nearly 30 years of experience with hospitals and managed care organizations, accreditation and regulatory standards, healthcare law, credentialing and privileging, start-up operations, mergers and acquisitions, physician relations, recruitment, and practitioner wellness.  In addition, she has been both a Hardenbergh client and worked with Hardenbergh as an Independent Contractor.

Prior to joining Hardenbergh, Lisa served as the System Director of Physician Services at NCH Healthcare System where she successfully developed and implemented the professional practice evaluation process as well as an online credentialing and privileging process, while also maintaining compliance for regulatory agencies and accrediting bodies for the NCH Healthcare System Medical Staff Office, NCHMD, Inc. CVO, and Southwest Florida Physician’s Association. Lisa received the Quality Award in 2018 for reducing the turn-around time for processing applications and improving efficiencies and was recognized for best practice by The Joint Commission in 2019 for her online survey process.

Before NCH, Lisa served as the Corporate Credentialing Project Manager for Baptist Health South Florida, the Manager of Medical Staff Services and Graduate Medical Education for West Kendall Baptist Hospital, and the Director of the Corporate Credentialing Office for Jackson Health System.

Lisa maintains her Certified Professional Medical Staff Services Management (CPMSM) and Certified Provider Credentialing Specialist (CPCS) status. She completed the NAMSS Leadership Certificate Program in 2018, has served on the NAMSS Certification Commission and Ethics Committee, and has served in leadership roles on the local, state, and national level. Lisa is also a licensed physical therapist assistant and a certified health coach. 

Sara Cameron, CPMSM, CPCS

Director, Professional Services

About Sara

Sara Cameron is a 22-year Medical Staff Services leader holding her CPCS, CPMSM and NAMSS Leadership certifications. She has held roles in critical access, academic and tertiary care facilities in Alaska, Missouri, Washington, Oregon, and Illinois. She served as Director at Large on the NAMSS Board of Directors, 2019-2021. Sara now serves as Director of Professional Services. Her role allows her to share her knowledge, creativity and passion for Value Based Peer Review, Quality, Risk Management, and Physician leader and medical staff professional development.

Delicia Dimberg, MEd-OM, BHA, CPCS

Director, Professional Services
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About Delicia

Delicia Dimberg is Director, Professional Services for The Hardenbergh Group.  She brings more than 20 years of experience as a Medical Staff Services professional supporting healthcare organizations across the United States. Delicia specializes in medico-legal issues and operational assessments for healthcare organizations including credentialing, privileging, enrollment, peer review, quality analysis, bylaws, policy, and procedure development, contracts, professional wellness programs, graduate medical education, and continuing medical education programs.

Delicia possesses extensive experience in change leadership and organizational management to effectively develop processes and procedures for organizations’ improved throughput, including implementation and standardization for high reliability of physician data management across multiple platforms.  She has developed continuing medical education programs to help organizations achieve accreditation with commendation and performance improvement in support of quality patient care.  She has also supported multiple organizations in transitioning from paper to fully automated credentialing, privileging, and peer review systems from the point of inquiry through onboarding to periodic appraisals.

Prior to joining The Hardenbergh Group, Delicia was a paralegal for law firms specializing in serving Medical Staff organizations. As a paralegal she supported coaching, education, Bylaws and policy development, hearings, and malpractice cases. She transitioned to Medical Staff Services to be a proactive advocate and supporter of patient safety. Delicia has held multiple roles in Medical Staff Services including Medical Staff Quality Analyst, Medical Staff Coordinator, and Director.

Delicia has a BA in Healthcare Administration, an Executive Certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Cornell University, M.Ed. in Organizational Management at Endicott College and is currently working towards her PhD. She is a member of the New Mexico and Massachusetts Association of Medical Staff Services. 

Tammy West, MHA/ED, CPMSM, CPCS

Director, Professional Services
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About Tammy

Tammy is Director Professional Services for the Hardenbergh Group. Tammy is dual certified with over 25 years’ experience in healthcare administration and 15 years in Medical Staff Services. Tammy specializes in CVO operations, provider credentialing, provider enrollment, provider licensing, quality analysis and improvement, quality auditing, and policy and procedure creation and implementation. She has extensive experience with CMS, TJC and NCQA requirements for provider credentialing and medical staff services.

Tammy’s previous experience includes work as a consultant and independent contractor with hospitals, health systems, CVOs, locum companies and private practices across the United States.  She was a CVO Manager for a large health system where she created and implemented policies and procedures for a new corporate CVO. Tammy was a Hardenbergh contractor for 8 years prior to joining our corporate team. She has experience across the MSP spectrum, including credentialing specialist, provider enrollment specialist, medical staff coordinator, Medical Staff Manager, and CVO Director. 

Tammy has a BS in Human Services Management and a master’s in healthcare administration with a concentration in Education. She is a member of the North Carolina Association Medical Staff Services and the National Association Medical Staff Services.

Stephanie Gratzer

Senior Director Client Services, Peer Review

About Stephanie

As Senior Director of Client Services Stephanie oversees and manages external peer review projects from start to completion to ensure every review is comprehensive, concise, and completed on time. She recognizes that each case is unique, and makes certain the appropriate reviewer with the experience and qualifications pertinent to the case is selected to deliver the highest quality report. She values developing meaningful rapport with clients and strives for continuous excellence.

Stephanie has over nine years of peer review experience. Previously, she worked as a Medical Staff Professional at Rose Medical Center. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado Boulder and is a Colorado native.

Kathy Wendt

Director of Marketing
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About Kathy

Kathy has been with Hardenbergh since 2010 and is involved with coordinating many facets of our day-to-day business. She oversees our support of the NAMSS-affiliated annual state conferences, thought leadership webinars and presentations, and various marketing initiatives. Additionally, she assists with internal operational projects to support our consultants. Every new project she undertakes interfaces with most areas of the company.  The opportunity to improve Hardenbergh’s levels of service delivered to our clients and contractors is the part of her job she enjoys the most. 
 
Kathy has over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing, working in the pharmaceutical products industry, recruiting software, and she was the International Marketing Manager for a global sporting goods manufacturer. Kathy has a Bachelor of Science degree in Merchandising Management from Michigan State University.