Gaye Fortner is the President and chief executive officer for the HC21 Business Coalition and CEO for HC21 Solutions, Inc. She has a proven record of successfully assisting employers in managing the health of their employee population through innovative, value-based approaches. Fortner has developed, managed and evaluated a number of funded studies that are dedicated to the management of chronic diseases, high risk lifestyle factors and conditions having a high impact on productivity.
Fortner has experience leading multi-stakeholder initiatives that include analysis of the impact of value-based benefit designs, employee engagement strategies, employer-provider-health plan collaborations and development of tools and resources to enhance patient adherence. In addition, Fortner assists purchasers in selecting and reviewing disease management vendors and works to support employers as they implement a health risk management approach to improve employee health and reduce costs. Under her direction, the Coalition has led purchasers to apply national standards for quality measurement in Tennessee, publicly reporting Leapfrog, JCAHO Core Measures, eValue8 and other national data sets.
Fortner was one of the original six Leapfrog rollout leaders and has represented purchasers on the National Quality Forum Steering Committees for the National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing Sensitive Care and the HCAPHS performance measures for public reporting. Fortner is a master’s prepared nurse and has held numerous quality, educator and leadership roles. She serves on the National Business Coalition on Health’s Board of Governors as vice-chair, the TN State Medical Advisory Committee, Knoxville’s Community Health Council, Knox County’s Prescription Drug Task Force, and is a 2015 graduate of Leadership Knoxville.
