Meet our 2023 Notable LGBTQ+ Executives
Improving health screening outreach. Making it easier for providers and staff to develop their careers. Supporting our frontline workers. Don Moschkau, MHA, and Susan Pleasants, MD, MBA, advance care for our employees and patients every day in their respective roles as vice president of talent strategy and senior vice president for optimal care.
For their dedicated, transformative work, Moschkau and Pleasants were honored as 2023 Notable LGBTQ+ Executives by Twin Cities Business Magazine. This award recognizes individuals in a senior-level role who identify as LGBTQ+ and who have created a demonstrated positive impact in their field.
We sat down with Moschkau and Pleasants to learn more about their careers, health equity, and what it means for them to receive this recognition.
What is your role with M Health Fairview?
Moschkau: I’m vice president of talent strategy. Our team works with leaders across the organization to make sure we have the very best people to care for our patients and achieve our goals as a system. We bring in new employees and give them opportunities to learn and grow within M Health Fairview. Our people matter, and we help our leaders create a workplace where our employees feel valued and supported in their work.
Pleasants: I’m senior vice president for optimal care. Our team brings together groups within our health system working to improve patient outcomes at a lower cost of care. One of my biggest goals is to make the right thing to do, the easiest thing to do. Our care teams are focused on patient care every day and our role is to support them.
What was your path to healthcare leadership?
Moschkau: I’ve been with Fairview Health Services for 25 years and have worked in healthcare since high school when I started as a nursing assistant. My mother worked in healthcare as a home health aide and nursing assistant.
I eventually moved into an operations role with Fairview Home Care and Hospice, then became a recruiter. I’ve found a way to give back and care for patients by hiring and supporting our providers – that's my passion. I now get to lead a team that motivates, engages, and helps our care teams provide the best patient care possible.
Pleasants: I started my career as a family medicine physician and then spent over seven years in health informatics. My work focused on population health: How do we identify which patients need services? How do we support them in getting connected to those services? I’m still able to support patients across their care journey, but I'm able to have that impact across a greater number of people through helping to lead our value-based care efforts.
I still see patients one day a week at the M Health Fairview Acute and Diagnostic Services Clinic – Maple Grove, which allows me to have that face-to-face interaction. I love talking to individuals and understanding their unique needs.
What are your goals as a leader?
Moschkau: I’ve had an amazing opportunity to grow my career during 25 years with Fairview, and I want to ensure that opportunity is available to everyone in our organization. My goal is to engage staff, and make sure leaders across our organization have the tools and resources they need to support employees in their career growth. I also teach a class on human resources in healthcare at the University of Minnesota. My goal is to prepare our students to become future leaders in the field and to take an intersectional approach that values diverse perspectives.
Pleasants: My goal is to improve patient outcomes, by improving how we support our care teams. One way to do this is to simplify how we care for the same patient over time and across our system. For example, if we’re seeing someone for an acute illness or injury, our goal is to find ways to support them in keeping up with their other healthcare needs. One of our initiatives is to improve systemic outreach when patients are due for a test or appointment. How do we improve our communication with patients between visits? How do we support them in making screening and other routine appointments and how do we follow up when these visits are overdue?
How is health equity part of your daily work?
Moschkau: We aim to recruit a team of providers and employees who reflect the communities we serve. Our workforce development team partners with organizations throughout the Twin Cities and beyond to ensure our career opportunities reach a wide range of people – starting with high school students who may not be aware of careers in healthcare.
Diversity is key to providing responsive patient care. It’s important for me to have a provider who understands my experience with healthcare and my needs as a gay man; I appreciate being informed by my provider about health issues that specifically affect my community. Providers need to understand how to care for patients of all religions, races, economic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and gender identities because our identities and experiences affect our beliefs about health and healthcare.
Pleasants: We’re looking at the health of our patients and communities through the lens of equity and inclusion. We measure our performance across several categories including race, age, socioeconomic background, and others. We want to see if we’re impacting everyone in an equitable way and we know that treating everyone in the exact same way doesn’t always lead to equitable outcomes.
We must find where gaps in care exist and then work to close those gaps. For example, when it comes to improving our outreach for routine screening, we can’t just increase the total number of people coming in for screening – we need to make sure we’re increasing screening rates for everyone.
What does the ‘Notable Executive’ recognition mean to you?
Moschkau: It’s a recognition of the work I’ve done with M Health Fairview and through volunteer roles to amplify the voices of my communities and ensure we’re being heard. It feels great to have this work acknowledged. I hope it calls attention to the important work we continue to do in healthcare, to create and work toward an equitable future for all Minnesotans.
Pleasants: I’m a member of our Pride Alliance Group for Equality (PAGE) Employee Resource Group. To me, it’s incredibly meaningful that PAGE nominated me for this award and that we have that culture of celebrating diverse perspectives within M Health Fairview. We’ve created an internal community that supports each other and recognizes the value we bring to the organization.
