W. June Simmons
President and CEO
Nationally recognized for her leadership in the administration of health care organizations, W. June Simmons is a visionary in developing innovative approaches to health care delivery in the 21st century. Throughout her distinguished career, she has been instrumental in creating, funding and operating forward-looking health and social services research and programs.
As founding President and CEO of Partners in Care Foundation, Ms. Simmons strongly believes that healthcare and social delivery of services need to change, especially in community and home settings. She takes an active role in developing initiatives and pro-active programs which meet the mutual needs of patient populations, providers, and health care delivery networks to encourage cost-effective, patient-friendly integration of care from hospital to home and community. Under her leadership, Partners has grown ten-fold since its establishment in 1998 and has been awarded many major grants to investigate and evaluate new models of health care and social service delivery, including those in managed care environments.
Ms. Simmons was selected as a Delegate for 2005 White House Conference on Aging. She also serves as Senior Advisor to the Alliance for Children and Families’ National Initiative for Transforming Social Service Geriatric Practice, a four year initiative funded by Atlantic Philanthropies; as an appointee to the HMO Caregiver Work Group, a national think tank funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to advance managed care models for caring for the aging population which also includes major medical providers from throughout the country; Advisory Board Member of the Practice Change Fellows Selection Committee; and as a consultant to managed care and hospital organizations.
Taking a broad view of the health care system, Ms. Simmons was founding Chair of the National Chronic Care Consortium. She initiates and directs the Institute for Advancement of Geriatric Social Work Education, a cooperative venture between major Southern California graduate schools of social work to develop the region as a center of excellence in geriatric social work education.
In addition, Ms. Simmons currently serves on major national and local technical committees, panels and advisory boards including: the National Board of the American Society on Aging (ASA), the National Leadership Council of the National Council on Aging (NCOA), the L.A. County Long Term Care Coordinating Council as co-Chair; the Advisory Committee for the Los Angeles NORC project, the Community Benefit Committee of Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital; the Board of Councilors of USC School of Social Work as Chair and the California Community Choices Project Advisory Committee as Chair.
Ms. Simmons also is the editor of Home Health Care Services Quarterly - The Journal for Community Care and the author and co-author of many articles and chapters published in major scholarly journals and books. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars and has been recognized for her leadership in innovation and management by academic and national professional organizations. The California Healthcare Association, representing the state’s hospitals and health care systems, presented Ms. Simmons with its 2004 Certificate of Distinction for exemplary performance on behalf of the health care community for voluntary duties.
Ms. Simmons began her career in 1972 at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California where she developed and administered a comprehensive multi-function hospital social work department as Chief of Patient Services. As Founding Director of Senior Care Network, she developed a comprehensive geriatric services center to develop new in-patient models, health promotion and community-based coordinated health care programs and financing systems with multiple major grants. As Associate Hospital Administrator, she was responsible for all patient flow functions as well as the hospital’s cancer programs.
In 1993 Ms. Simmons joined Visiting Nurse Association, Los Angeles, which was first established in 1927, to provide home health services. She later became President and CEO in 1996. After the assets of the VNA-LA were sold in 1997, she served as the founding President and CEO for the succeeding non-profit Partners in Care Foundation.
June Simmons holds a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from Occidental College and a M.S.W. from the University of Southern California.
Contact June Simmons at (818) 837-3775, ext. 101 or by email
