Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Patrick O’Shaughnessy is a visionary leader in the healthcare field. He is currently president and CEO at Catholic Health, a major health system with nearly 16,000 employees, six acute care hospitals, and three nursing homes. He is listed in Long Island Business News’ Who’s Who Among Healthcare Professionals and is recognized for his charitable work for food insecurity.

O’Shaughnessy is passionate about helping people live healthier lives. A proponent of population health management, his priorities include addressing the social determinants of health, with a focus on alleviating food insecurity. As a leader at Catholic Health, he is instrumental in the organization’s work to get fresh food and health coverage to people in need. O’Shaughnessy has served on the boards of LiveOnNY and Healthix and was a member of the Suffolk County Heroin and Prescription Opiate Epidemic Advisory Panel. His work has earned him recognition as The Times of Smithtown’s Man of the Year in Medicine and Family & Children’s Association Hero of the Month, and he was honored by Smile Farms Inc., a New York nonprofit that provides developmentally disabled adults with meaningful work opportunities at farms, urban gardens, greenhouses, and farm stands.

According to O’Shaughnessy, “We can’t lose sight of what we need to do on the social determinants side, such as people who are dealing with food insecurity.” In his work with Catholic Health, O’Shaughnessy organized partnerships with food banks to get fresh food out to people in need. He also implemented a program called Healthy Sundays, where team members go into communities in state-of-the-art Catholic Health mobile vans and screen people to determine whether they meet criteria for health plan enrollment. In his role at Catholic Health, O’Shaughnessy is ensuring that everyone’s healthcare and nutritional needs are kept in our societal sights.

O’Shaughnessy values the work of coalition-building, whether in the business or nonprofit sector. In a July 2022 guest editorial for Becker’s Hospital Review, O’Shaughnessy wrote that “community partnerships are vital to addressing food insecurity and for identifying the root causes driving this issue. We can't solve the problem alone, but together as a nation, we have the resources to end food insecurity. It will require an active partnership between a vast network of charities, food banks, governments and the private sector.”

Changing market pressures is not only an issue in the for-profit sector. During the pandemic, Catholic Health was quick to implement and expand its online and telehealth services. The invaluable eVisit program proved to be an important resource, even as in-person visitation restrictions were eased, providing convenient, safe access to care. Advanced robotic technology, which can provide information and answers to general questions, as well as route calls to specialists, has also been a major initiative under O’Shaughnessy’s leadership.

Salvatore Sodano, chair of Catholic Health’s board of directors, said upon O’Shaughnessy’s appointment as president and CEO, “Dr. O’Shaughnessy is an accomplished physician executive with more than 18 years of administrative leadership experience in strategy, innovation, operations and design in healthcare organizations. He is well known, trusted and respected by the Long Island medical community, and has established a favorable reputation with clinical leaders nationally and in the tri-state area.”

O’Shaughnessy outlined his inspirational leadership for the future of healthcare in a recent essay by stating, “By the year 2030, there will be a shortage of more than 1 million nurses and ancillary healthcare staff and professionals—physician assistants, nurse practitioners, radiology techs, laboratory technicians and physicians. There are opportunities in the IT space. We need people to develop new software, to not just think outside the box but to blow up the box, looking at technology-based solutions that could improve the overall health of our population. We also need business leaders because healthcare runs some of the tightest margins in all of business.”

Working directly with the next generation of healthcare leaders, O’Shaughnessy has been collaborating with students from Adelphi University through a partnership between Catholic Charities USA and Island Harvest Food Bank, overseeing the building of a program to expand access to food banks. Including students in the work not only provides much-needed people power, it gives them practical experience and a model for future work and coalition-building. He also takes his knowledge and commitment directly to students and is a past presenter at the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation’s Spring Symposium, where he spoke on “The Role of the Future Non-MD.”

Through his charitable commitments, his exceptional understanding of the needs and challenges of healthcare in the future, and his work with college students, O’Shaughnessy is an exemplary role model for future business leaders.