The top lobbyist for Vermont’s hospitals has left her post to run the organization that advocates for Vermont’s 10 visiting nurse associations and hospices.
Jill Mazza Olson, the former vice president of policy and legislative affairs at the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, will be the executive director of the VNAs of Vermont starting Monday.
Olson worked for the hospital association for 14 years and left Sept. 23. She and Mike Del Trecco, the hospital association’s vice president of finance, ran the organization while the board of directors searched for a new CEO.
Sandy Rousse, the president of the board of the VNAs of Vermont, said Olson “brings tremendous value, knowledge, experience, and relationships” to the new post and that she will help “form a vision that advances our role in health care transformation in Vermont.”
Olson said that as Vermont’s population ages and health care reform encourages keeping people healthy over keeping them in hospitals, more people will use visiting nursing associations to get care at home.
“We were spending a lot of time talking about population health and prevention, and one thing about VNAs is they really have extensive expertise in caring for the whole person,” she said. “That I think is the approach we need for reducing health care costs.”
Olson got her bachelor’s degree and master’s in public administration from Columbia University in New York City and has worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and Rikers Island Health Services.
“We have a continuum of care, and all providers play an important role in the system,” she said. “The VNAs play a role that I think is going to be very important as we try to transform the system, so that’s what makes it exciting for me.”
