Bush ’93 Receives Leadership Award from Tufts Medical Center

Tufts Medical Center selected Jonathan Bush ’93 to receive the Ellen M. Zane Award for Visionary Leadership. Chairman and CEO of the health care technology company, athenahealth, Bush was cited for “exemplifying visionary and transformational leadership” as well as his “passion for uniting individualized and coordinated patient care with the demands and practicalities of healthcare management.”

Bush co-founded athenahealth in 1997. In 2007 it was the most successful initial public offering, and it is now one of the health care information technology industry’s fastest growing companies, considered by many to be industry standard. In announcing the award, President and CEO of Tufts Medical Center and Floating Hospital for Children Dr. Michael Wagner said, “I am proud that we share Jonathan’s enthusiasm to drive change in health care for the greater good.”

A College of Social Studies major at Wesleyan, Bush also earned a MBA from Harvard Business School. His background also includes service as an emergency medical technician for the  City of New Orleans, training as a medic in the U.S. Army, and working as a management consultant in the healthcare practice of  Booz Allen & Hamilton. Bush currently serves on the Board of Fellows of the Harvard Medical School.

Tufts Medical Center will present this award at the 2016 Working Wonders benefit event on March 16 in Boston.

In January, Bush also appeared in the news for his individual, hands-on efforts in healthcare: specifically providing CPR to resuscitate a stranger. While Bush was in San Francisco for the JP Morgan Healthcare conference, speaking on the use of data to coordinate health care, he momentarily left the meetings to tend to his own health care: buy an icepack for a knee injury. Exiting the pharmacy, he came upon a man lying on the sidewalk while a crowd of people gathered. Bush used his EMT training and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Another bystander began applying chest compression and paramedics soon arrived to take over. Boston Globe staff writer Robert Weisman quoted Bush: “It was like the U.S. healthcare system. Everybody was standing there, no one was helping.”