Legally speaking, she’s making a big difference

CHANGE AGENT: Care New England Senior Vice President and General Counsel Alyssa V. Boss, right, has had a major role in updating the state’s Hospital Conversion Act, while improving the functioning of the hospital system’s legal department. Here she meets with Associate General Counsel Sui Jim. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
CHANGE AGENT: Care New England Senior Vice President and General Counsel Alyssa V. Boss, right, has had a major role in updating the state’s Hospital Conversion Act, while improving the functioning of the hospital system’s legal department. Here she meets with Associate General Counsel Sui Jim. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

How did Alyssa V. Boss, senior vice president and general counsel of Care New England Health Systems, earn her PBN Business Women recognition?
Start with the fact she helped transform the health care delivery system in Rhode Island by helping legislators draft changes to the Hospital Conversion Act that made it easier for financially distressed hospitals to merge with nonprofit systems to avoid bankruptcy or receivership. It led to the successful merger and integration of Westerly Hospital with Lawrence and Memorial Hospital and the merger and integration of the Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island with Care New England.
Boss helped execute Care New England’s mission as a nonprofit holding company seeking to develop an integrated delivery system. CNE’s network now includes Butler, Kent, Memorial and Women’s & Infants hospitals, along with VNA of Care New England, as well as affiliations with The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
Internally, she has centralized all of CNE’s legal services and budgets into one department and implemented a more streamlined contract management and signature-authorization policy.
Charles E. Reppucci, vice chair of the CNE board of directors said, “I’ve been on boards since the early ’80s. I’ve seen a lot of very talented health care professionals. She stands out.”
He recently watched her take control of a meeting under difficult circumstances.
“The next day,” Reppucci said, “I received the request from the Providence Business News for a Woman to Watch nomination. I put her in. She has a lot about her that other people could aspire to.”
He also admires Boss because she faces the daily challenge of being a working mother with twin teenage girls.
“Yet within 17 years of graduating from law school, she was able to help create a new health care delivery system in Rhode Island,” he said.
CNE President and CEO Dennis D. Keefe said in his letter nominating Boss that the type of affiliation agreements the company does requires “exhaustive legal work. And behind all of this legal work at Care New England is Alyssa V. Boss.”
Boss took a rather indirect route to business success. Her first college credential was a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Rhode Island. She went to work in the private sector while considering whether to go law school.
She worked a summer internship at Care New England under then-General Counsel Constance A. Howes and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Roger Williams University in 1997.
Boss became a transactional attorney, dealing with contracts and deeds in the corporate world, but kept in touch with Howes.
“I was interested in health care law,” Boss said. “I liked the idea of working for clients with a mission.”
She became CNE’s associate vice president and general counsel in 2005 and CNE vice president in 2011.
“Alyssa has served in positions of increasing responsibility,” said Howes, the winner of the 2008 Business Women Career Achievement award. “I believe that she has the talent, intellect and capacity to take on even more leadership roles in the future.”

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