Executive Leadership
Meet our Dignity Health California team.
Julie Sprengel
President & CEO, CommonSpirit Health California Region
Julie J. Sprengel is the President and Chief Executive Officer for CommonSpirit Health’s California Region, providing executive leadership to healthcare delivery systems spanning 650 miles from as far north as Mt. Shasta to as far south as San Bernardino. Sprengel brings more than 20 years of valuable, results-driven experience and has coupled it with a commitment to ensuring the health and well-being for nearly ten million Californians.
Sprengel has successfully led innovative and strategic planning processes focused on workforce recovery, investment in graduate medical education and nurse residency programs, enhancing quality and safety, the patient experience, employee engagement, and the implementation of sustainable growth initiatives. Sprengel oversees nearly 40,000 dedicated employees and 10,000 physicians, encompassing 31 acute-care hospitals, and more than 125 ambulatory care sites, including physician clinics, urgent care centers, surgery centers, imaging centers, post-acute and home health agencies.
Sprengel helped pave the way for historic partnerships with Charles R. Drew University School of Medicine and Science, where she serves on the Board of Trustees, and separately, the Morehouse School of Medicine, to expand GME training for BIPOC. Additionally, Sprengel serves as the Secretary/Treasurer on the Executive Board of Trustees for the California Hospital Association (CHA) and speaks frequently as an advocate for the benefits of a population health framework and diversification of providers to improve clinical outcomes and overall health.
Kris Blanchard
Vice President CRO, CommonSpirit Health California Division
Kris Blanchard is the California Division Vice President for Corporate Responsibility. After 30 years as a RN in the Clinical and Administrative Acute Hospital setting, Kris transitioned to Compliance in 2016, bringing her operations experience to the Dignity Health and now CommonSpirit Health Compliance Team. Kris oversees compliance for the Dignity Health acute care facilities in California.
Kris received her Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Mount St. Mary's University in Los Angeles and Masters in Public Administration from California State University at Northridge. She is an alumni with the California Health Care Foundation Leadership Fellowship and is certified in Healthcare Compliance and Healthcare Privacy Compliance.
Auburn Daily
VP & General Counsel, CommonSpirit Health California Division
Auburn Daily (she/her) is an attorney at Dignity Health and serves as Division Vice President & General Counsel for the Northern California Division. In that role, Auburn provides day-to-day counseling to the hospitals on a wide variety of operational issues and oversees all contracting for the Division. In addition, she serves as an enterprise expert in the areas of transgender health, graduate medical education, EMTALA, physician recruitment, and fraud and abuse laws.
Prior to joining Dignity Health in 2014, Auburn worked in-house at the University of California system, where she served as an internal expert on Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursement for the UC's five academic medical centers.
Auburn also worked at the law firms of Latham & Watkins and Powell Goldstein. Auburn obtained her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, her MPH (with a focus in Epidemiology) from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her BA from the University of the South (double major in Political Science and Spanish).
Drew Gagner
Vice President of Philanthropy, CommonSpirit Health California Division
Drew Gagner is the Vice President of Philanthropy for the Northern California Division. For more than 27 years, Drew Gagner has fundraised for four CommonSpirit Health philanthropic foundations.
With decades of fund development experience, management credentials, and strategic planning expertise. Philanthropy organizations under his watch are regularly identified as being among the best in their peer group - meeting and exceeding internal goals along with national benchmarks. His leadership and fund development experience include long-time service on the system-wide Philanthropy Advisory Committee as a trainer, subject-matter expert, and member of numerous philanthropy and operations sub-committees.
Drew earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies at Fordham University. Additionally, he earned his MBA from the University of Redlands and has been honored to have been selected for two fellowship programs – one in healthcare leadership and one in philanthropy.
Megan Martinez
Vice President, Administrative Services, California Region
Megan joined Dignity Health in 2016 as part of the marketing and communications department. During her tenure with the company, she has continually demonstrated a strong commitment to our shared mission, vision, and values.
Megan is responsible for a wide variety of administrative and executive duties, including special project management, regional initiatives, corporate sponsorships, recognition programs, as well as executive communications and events in support of the California Region Office of the President. Prior to joining Dignity Health, Megan spent 11 years in the nonprofit museum industry where she served as the Vice President of Marketing and Development.
Nicholas Testa
Chief Medical Officer, CommonSpirit Health California Region
Nicholas Testa, MD, is an Emergency Physician by training with more than 15 years of leadership experience. Dr. Testa currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for CommonSpirit Health’s California Region. As the CMO of the largest operating region within CommonSpirit, Dr. Testa provides medical leadership for 31 hospitals statewide. Dr. Testa is a leader in clinician alignment with a focus on enhancing the safety, quality, and patient experience for millions of patients who receive care at Dignity Health facilities.
Dr. Testa joined Dignity Health in 2017. During his tenure, Dr. Testa’s focus has been on rallying all team members to improve safety, clinical quality, patient experience, and utilization while building stronger partnerships between physicians and hospital leaders. Of note, his work includes the implementation of the High Reliability Organization (HRO) model, which equips employees and physicians with tools and behaviors that significantly reduced the risk of patient harm.
Dr. Testa is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and has completed the National Association of Public Hospital fellowship in quality and leadership, the Institute of Healthcare Improvement Patient Safe Officer program, and has been recognized by the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors for his dedication and leadership in improving the quality of care delivered in Los Angeles County. Dr. Testa lectures and publishes on patient safety, enhancing hospital efficiency, the medical peer review system, and strategies for improving clinical outcomes.
Ron Yolo
Chief Nursing Officer, CommonSpirit Health California Region
Ron Yolo, DNP, MSN, MBA, RN, has committed his entire nursing career to fulfilling the mission of Dignity Health to meet the health care needs of our diverse communities. Ron Yolo currently serves as the Regional Chief Nursing Executive Officer for CommonSpirit Health’s California Region. Ron has oversight of the delivery and practice of nursing care and operations over 31 acute care hospitals across the state of California. He leads over 18,000 nurses across the region ensuring the delivery of high-quality care and exceptional patient experience.
Ron is well-respected for building collaborative relationships with frontline staff, physicians, senior leaders, and other members of the health care team throughout the organization. Ron previously served as the CNO at Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center, during which time he has been instrumental in developing and managing systems to deliver evidenced-based care.
Ron started his career as a nursing assistant at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach in 1999. During his 18 year tenure, Ron proved himself as an effective leader and excelled through various leadership positions within the organization. His strong interpersonal skills, coupled with his clinical excellence, resulted in hospital-wide improvement and growth in several departments.
He holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from Yale University, and previously earned his MBA from University of Southern California, and his MSN from University of California Los Angeles. Ron is also an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Nursing DNP program.
Sue Pietrafeso
Chief Strategy Officer, CommonSpirit Health California Region
Sue Pietrafeso brings 25 years of executive healthcare leadership experience to CommonSpirit Health’s California Region. She is responsible for enhancing growth and access to care by overseeing strategic planning for 31 hospitals in alignment with more than 200 ambulatory care sites statewide. She currently leads the business development, marketing, communications, and sales teams in key initiatives, including service line growth, and expansion of Integrated Delivery Networks.
Sue joined Dignity Health in 2018, as the Chief Strategy Officer for the Dignity Health Southern California market and in 2020 added the Nevada market to her portfolio. In 2021, she expanded her responsibilities as the Chief Strategy Officer for the newly named Southern California Division.
She plays an integral role in collaborating with hospitals’ executive leadership teams to guide their business objectives for service line growth that align with the organization’s strategic direction. Sue is vital in the development of risk mitigation strategies to safeguard the organization’s long-term success and has led the development of a Population Health strategy around network adequacy, network alignment, repatriation, and other value based care measures.
Prior to joining Dignity Health, Sue spent 15 years working for HCA most recently in HCA’s Ambulatory Surgery Division, where she served as Vice President for Physician and Provider Relations, leading a team of 39 Business Development Directors in 12 states and more than 20 markets. She holds her Master’s in Public Administration from Syracuse University and a Bachelors of Arts from UC Santa Cruz.
Shelly Schorer
Chief Financial Officer, CommonSpirit Health California Region
Shelly Schorer is a seasoned healthcare leader with more than 25 years of executive experience. She currently oversees the financial performance of the state including the integrated delivery network encompassing hospitals, ambulatory care sites, physician alignment, joint ventures, and payer relations. Shelly represents the region for consolidated reporting, projections, and all other financial presentations.
Shelly has served on many community boards throughout her career and remains a sought-after thought leader for business partners. She has been a national speaker on subjects regarding healthcare, leading, mentoring, women’s roles, and disaster management and recovery. She has been repeatedly recognized throughout her career with numerous awards, including outstanding alumni from my MBA alma mater. Before joining Dignity Health, Shelly spent twelve years at Mercy in the midwest where she served as a regional CFO for Southwest Missouri-Kansas.
Adnan Hamid
Chief Information Officer, CommonSpirit Health California Region
Adnan serves as the Principal Technology Leader for the California Region. With more than 20 years of hospital experience and Board certification in Healthcare Executive Technology leadership, Adnan has enabled hospital organizations to adopt technology to improve patient care, expand delivery of healthcare services, and reduce costs, while ensuring information assets are secure. His career goal is to develop centers of digital health excellence that transform patient care into patient empowerment.
Adnan provides vision and leadership to IT & Digital (ITD) for developing and implementing the Division’s strategies and initiatives. Adnan’s role supports our ongoing commitment to promote the strategic use of information technology that advances the overall mission of ITD.
Linda McDonald
Region Mission Leader, Commonspirit Health California Region
Linda McDonald is the Region Vice President of Mission Integration for the California Region. Linda has been an experienced mission leader for the last 30 years, now overseeing 29 facilities in California.
One of Dignity Health’s first lay mission leaders, Linda brings her social work skills and dedicated faith to her mission work of presence and operational excellence in spiritual care, ethics, palliative care, community health, church relations and formation.
Linda received her Masters of Social Work at the University of Southern California. Her training included macro social work, focusing on program planning and community health as well as clinical social work. She used these skills in a more strategically focused and well-integrated process in the area of community health. She has served on various boards and community groups representing Dignity Health and its facilities.
Will Owens
Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO), CommonSpirit Health California Region
Will Owens was appointed as the CHRO for the expanded California Region in November 2023. In this capacity, Will is responsible for the Strategic HR direction of all Human Capital, Clinical Education, and Occupational Health needs for the thirty-one hospitals in the California Region.
Will joined Dignity Health in May 2014 and during his tenure, he re-aligned Woodland Clinic to Dignity Health Medical Foundation, streamlined the performance evaluation process, built union relationships, improved employee engagement and other workforce initiatives. Will served as the Human Resource Director of Mercy San Juan Medical Center, Methodist Hospital of Sacramento, and Woodland Memorial Hospitals, and before that, Manager of Human Resources at the Woodland Clinic. He was named Vice President of Human Resources for the Northern California Division from 2019 to 2023.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the Greater Sacramento Urban League serving as Board Secretary; is currently the Immediate Past President of the Northern California Chapter of the National Association of Health Services Executives (NAHSE) and previously held board membership roles with Target Excellence of Sacramento.