The Tony Lawson Special Recognition Award

Bryan Hayes, Executive Director of Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems (SVCHS), was recognized at the annual awards dinner hosted by the Virginia Healthcare Association on June 2nd as the recipient of the 2015 Tony Lawson Special Recognition Award. This award recognizes an outstanding staff person of a member organization or of the Virginia Community Healthcare Association, who is a non-provider or non-volunteer, for their extraordinary efforts in support of the organization’s overall mission.

Virginia has 29 Community Health Centers which operate over 150 service sites within rural and urban medically underserved areas across the Commonwealth. Using the Patient-Centered Medical Home model, Virginia’s Community Health Centers provide high-quality, affordable primary care regardless of whether a person is insured or uninsured, has a job or is unemployed. Community Health Centers in Virginia annually log over one million patient encounters providing primary care to some of our state’s sickest and poorest citizens.

The purpose of the 2015 Tony Lawson Special Recognition Award is to recognize outstanding and extraordinary work on behalf of and within Virginia’s Community Health Centers. According to Mr. Talmage Stanley, past board chair of the SVCHS board of directors who nominated Mr. Haynes for the award, Mr. Haynes led his organization through some unique financial and operational challenges.

“Once he was placed as Executive Director, Mr. Haynes immediately set to work diagnosing the issues, making decisions for the long-term health of the organization, and restoring staff morale. He began to effect significant change. With his leadership, our organization is now expanding… Mr. Haynes, while having faced an unimaginable family crisis himself, has not only piloted our organization through rough waters with vision and professionalism, but he has also done so with good cheer, calmness, and equanimity. “

Additional information may be obtained at http://vacommunityhealth.org/2015/06/2015-vcha-award-winners/.