Wayne Sass

Instructor

Wayne currently serves as the Founding Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Sage Health, a Nashville, TN-based startup, full risk, value-based provider delivering concierge level care to Medicare Advantage seniors in underserved communities without concierge fees. An Adjunct Professor at USC’s Price School, Wayne teaches Leading People and Health Care Organizations and Strategic Management in the school’s Executive Master of Healthcare Administration program. He is a Fellow of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (FCHIME), and a CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO (CHCIO). He holds a professional certification in Health Information Management Systems (CPHIMS) from HIMSS and is a PMI certified Project Management Professional (PMP). With more than 30 years of leadership service, Wayne is an experienced health care executive, specializing in building new teams and turning around under-performing ones.

For more than seven years prior to Sage Health, Wayne was the Vice President and CIO of Monarch HealthCare, part of Optum, and the largest Independent Practice Association (IPA) in Orange County, CA. Before that, Wayne’s leadership service included 20 years in CIO positions, and other senior executive roles, in almost every sector of the healthcare industry; provider organizations, hospital systems, payers, for-profit, and not-for-profit firms such as MemorialCare Medical Foundation, MemorialCare Health System, Nautilus Healthcare Management Group, Greater Newport Physicians, Hoag Hospital, DaVita, and PacifiCare Health Systems. Prior to his career in healthcare, Wayne worked as a Computer Scientist in the IT services industry and as both a Senior Systems Analyst and a Quality Assurance Engineer in aerospace defense. Before his civilian career, as a commissioned officer and aviator in the U.S. Army, Wayne commanded an Air Cavalry troop.

A native of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Wayne received all his higher education there, earning a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Tech, an M.B.A. from Liberty University, and his Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership from Regent University. Wayne is also a Scholar in the Beta Phi International Literary Society. His research interests include general theory of leadership, leader derailment, autonomous learning, and strategic planning. Wayne is passionate about encouraging and modeling leader development and intentional lifelong learning.