Carol Solomon – 2014 nominee for Modern Healthcare’s Community Leadership Award. The success of the healthcare industry depends on leaders who define themselves by leading efforts to change lives and contribute to their communities through their work. But many go above and beyond commitments central to their roles, reaching out to support causes that may be wholly unrelated to healthcare, but which build and sustain strong communities and the quality of life within them. Modern Healthcare's Community Leadership Awards was established to recognize these leaders while bringing attention to the worthy causes they support. Modern Healthcare's Community Leadership Awards was established to recognize these leaders while bringing attention to the worthy causes they support. http://www.modernhealthcare.com/section/community-leadership

1. To Whom It May Concern:
Over the past 15 years, Carol Solomon has embraced her role as Chief Executive Officer of Peoples
Health to truly bring change to community healthcare in New Orleans, and across southeast Louisiana.
Under Solomon’s guidance, Peoples Health has become a leader in managed care in Louisiana, offering
exceptionally rich and individually tailored plan benefits for Louisiana Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.
As CEO, Solomon is not only responsible for overseeing the business strategy for the organization, but
also for ensuring its financial success. In this role, Solomon has found true passion for her work as a way
to improve the overall quality of life for Louisiana’s seniors.
Solomon ensures that Peoples Health steadfastly supports the Louisiana communities it serves, offering
plans that facilitate full and active lifestyles for local seniors and meet the unique needs that result from
the indulgent Louisianan lifestyle. A corporate native of Louisiana and serving only fellow Louisianan’s,
Solomon has ensured Peoples Health understands the health needs of the local community far beyond
that of larger, national Medicare Advantage companies.
In 2012, Solomon spearheaded the innovative alliance between Peoples Health and Louisiana State
University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) and created the Center for Healthcare Advancement. The
center is a groundbreaking collaboration focused on improving the care delivered to Peoples Health
members, and eventually improving the overall health of all Louisianans.
The Center for Healthcare Advancement combines Peoples Health’s resources and community outreach
with the latest research available from the healthcare leaders at LSUHSC. In the implementation of the
center, a world-class team of distinguished healthcare professionals, known as the Advisory Council,
assembles best practices for the treatment and prevention of the most prevalent chronic conditions in
Louisiana (such as diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). These are then shared with the
physicians in the Peoples Health network and the medical students trained by LSUHSC.
The center became fully implemented in 2013, and immediately began to benefit Peoples Health
members through this dissemination of knowledge and best practices. Today, members see an
increased coordination of chronic care and health outcomes are improving across the member network.
The ultimate goal, as LSUHSC graduates trained on these treatment methods start to practice across the
state, is to increase better health outcomes for those with chronic conditions throughout Louisiana.
Knowing the unfortunate truth that one in 12 seniors lives in hunger, Solomon continues to leverage her
role at Peoples Health for the betterment of the larger community. Over the past few years, her work
has been instrumental in supporting and maintaining several efforts aimed to alleviate hunger in
southeast Louisiana.
The Food for Families/Food for Seniors program, a partnership with Catholic Charities Archdiocese of
New Orleans, is an effort to address the nutritional needs of those in Louisiana parishes. In 2012, Food
for Families/Food for Seniors distributed 811,000 boxes of commodities, approximately 97 percent of
which went to seniors, making it an obvious cause for Solomon’s Medicare Advantage company to
support.
In March 2013, Solomon ensured Peoples Health’s direct sponsorship of 400,000 food boxes in 23-
parishes. The success of this distribution inspired subsequent distributions in May and October 2013, as
well. An additional 1,360 food boxes were hand-delivered by Peoples Health employees across the
community, and another 700 food boxes were provided to the residents of Bogalusa specifically, an
impoverished area in east Louisiana.
www.peopleshealth.com

2. Each November, Peoples Health coordinates Celebrity Supermarket Sweeps in New Orleans and Baton
Rouge to further fight hunger. This homage to the classic game show annually raises $7,500 in groceries
for each Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana and the Baton Rouge Food
Bank respectively. The food collected goes directly to making 4,500 Thanksgiving meals for seniors in
New Orleans, and stocking the pantry for the busy holiday season in Baton Rouge.
Most notably in 2013, Solomon’s dedication to eradicating senior hunger in her community resulted in a
donation from Peoples Health of $220,000 to the Jefferson Parish Council on Aging (JCOA)’s Meals on
Wheels program. Early in 2013, JCOA announced a funding shortage that would have meant 200
Jefferson Parish seniors would no longer be able to participate in the free meals program. With this
financial backing from Peoples Health, Meals on Wheels had the budget to continue feeding all seniors
in the program for an entire year!
Beyond the issue of senior hunger, Peoples Health also advocates for the enthusiastic acknowledgement
that excellence in life is achieved with age, not despite it. Quite visibly, Solomon led the creation of the
Peoples Health Champions program, a collaborative effort with the New Orleans Saints that recognizes
seniors over age 65 who are living full, active lives. The program publically celebrates their enhanced
abilities to accomplish things they would not have been able to accomplish before having such a wealth
of experience. The Champions program recently celebrated a decade of service to the community since
its inception.
In her work outside of Peoples Health, Solomon serves on the Board of Directors for the Louisiana
Association of Health Plans, Louisiana’s trade association for the health benefits industry, a position she
has held since 2003. In addition to serving on the board, Solomon currently holds the position of
Scholarship Committee Chair, leading the charge of annually selecting a promising Louisiana medical
student to receive the $10,000 academic scholarship given by the organization.
Also among the Board of Directors for the Louisiana Public Health Institute, Solomon proudly
contributes to this nonprofit organization’s mission: to promote and improve health and quality of life
through diverse public-private partnerships with government, foundations, academia, community
groups and private businesses at the community, parish and state levels—a mission Solomon also strives
to accomplish daily through her role at Peoples Health.
Solomon is also a member of the board of trustees for the United Way of New Orleans, and is a founding
member of the Women’s Leadership Initiative for the nonprofit. She served as Chairwoman for the
American Heart Association’s 2007 “Go Red for Women” luncheon, the Louisiana Healthcare Summit
Delegate for the Louisiana Governor’s Office and a Delegate for the Louisiana Healthcare Delivery
Forum.
Solomon is committed to lending her healthcare expertise for the betterment of both her field and her
community. Louisiana is currently ranked 49 of all 50 states for healthcare, and this trend helps fuel
Solomon’s fervor for improving health programs across the state, not just at Peoples Health.
Faithful to what makes New Orleans so unique, Solomon is an active board member of the New Orleans
Jazz & Heritage Foundation (and Co-chair of the Foundation’s Gala Committee), Jefferson Business
Council, New Orleans Opera Association and serves as President of the Board of Directors for WWOZ
radio.
Solomon’s service through her company for her community is second to none. Outside of her personal
contributions, she encourages her staff members to support the New Orleans’ community as
www.peopleshealth.com

3. “ambassadors of Peoples Health.” She urges Peoples Health employees to participate in community
events, as well as nominate their favorite charities to be the focus of inter-company pledge-raising and
volunteering efforts.
Solomon is a model healthcare professional and New Orleanian, with a passion for the universal health
of her community that has fueled her career. Renowned for her devotion to the community, in
December 2012 Solomon was appointed to The Times-Picayune/Nola.com Roundtable. Assembling a
counsel of 14 leaders in business, healthcare, education, the arts and other arenas, the news outlet
regularly hosts editorial conversations about the issues most important to the southeast Louisiana
region. This roundtable meets bimonthly to discuss pressing issues and generate ideas for the
betterment of the community, to which Solomon contributes her years of healthcare expertise and
insight into the health of the community at large.
Carol Solomon’s dedication to the health of Louisiana and to the people of New Orleans is unsurpassed.
Through her work, her volunteer efforts and her community involvement, Solomon raises the bar for
executives everywhere. She is a pillar in the healthcare industry and New Orleans community, and is
worthy of the esteemed honor of receiving the Modern Healthcare Community Leadership Award.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Whitaker
Assistant Vice President, Communications
Peoples Health
www.peopleshealth.com