Consultant helps North Shore Health Board navigate first year with new members

During the March 20 North Shore Health Board meeting, Chair Randy Wiitala recommended contracting with Matt Anderson of Atrede Consulting to provide board governance coaching. Anderson, who had presented the previous month on the role of hospital boards, was already familiar to all members.

Wiitala’s suggestion came as the board underwent organizational changes and discussed motions related to meeting transparency. Newly elected members Sam Usem and Milan Schmidt joined the board in January after winning seats in the November 2024 election. Early in their term, they raised concerns about a confidentiality agreement and advocated for making meetings more accessible to the public through on-demand viewing options. The topics were discussed over several months during meetings with large public attendance.

At the April meeting, Wiitala moved to enter into a “board coaching” contract with Anderson, which was approved unanimously. The agreement lasted until October, with Anderson presenting a summary of his work during the September meeting.

Anderson’s presentation focused on the importance of unity following board decisions, even after disagreement.

“What he was focusing on was each board member needs to understand where the others are coming from rather than seeking to be understood,” Wiitala told WTIP.

Over the past six months, hospital leadership has drawn both praise and criticism during public comment periods of meetings. While some meetings have featured widespread agreement, others have included interruptions and raised voices.

The September meeting was an example of these disagreements during discussions around the status of the hospital’s acquisition of the “Bunk House” property and the upcoming strategic planning session.

When the strategic planning meeting was proposed to occur over the course of one day, Schmidt said he was, “Gobsmacked.”

“I know people have concerns and such, that I was concerned we would be able to address even those in a two-day meeting,” Schmidt said during the meeting. “And now I’m hearing that from out of the five board members, we’re going to deal with everybody’s issues in one day.”

After some discussion, the board agreed to extend the session to two days.

“It’s not going to shock anybody — this is not an incredibly efficient operating board,” Usem said during the meeting.

Wiitala told WTIP in July that Anderson was contracted to mentor board members as North Shore Health sought to become a “high-performing board.”

Unlike most hospital boards, North Shore Health’s governing board is elected by Cook County residents.

“This structure obviously provides some important advantages, such as ensuring that board members are residents of their local community and care about their local community’s needs, and are responsive to the issues that their community faces, but the structure, as you mentioned, also has some challenges,” Anderson told WTIP. “Examples that governance experts often point to with respect to elected boards is that it’s harder to ensure that your board has a range of expertise that is beneficial in addressing complex issues that face healthcare organizations.”

Anderson also noted that elected boards can face challenges such as partisanship, with members sometimes feeling obligated to fulfill campaign promises

“Once they’re elected to a hospital board, board member’s job is to collaborate with other board members to identify and articulate the organization’s collective priorities, and it’s really looking at what are the best interests of the organization, even if and even when that differs from what individual board members might have campaigned on or made promises about, or said was their priorities,” Anderson said.

Schmidt thanked Anderson for “the hopefulness of looking at some possible things [the board] can actually do.” Usem described Anderson’s work as “exceptional,” and Wiitala said the experience was “extremely valuable.”

In multiple interviews with WTIP, Wiitala has emphasized the importance of standing behind board decisions once votes are made.

“Just to be, you know, quite blunt — knock it out in the boardroom, but when you make a decision, whether it’s a split decision, move forward,” Wiitala told WTIP.

WTIP’s Josh Hinke spoke with North Shore Health CEO Kimber Wraalstad, Board Chair Randy Wiitala, and Atrede Consulting’s Matt Anderson. The audio of that conversation can be found below.

Josh Hinke October 17, 2025