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Dapaah-Afriyie, DeSanto-Madeya and Kydd join HopeHealth board of directors

Providence, RI: HopeHealth, a regional leader in home care, palliative and hospice care, today announced that three new members are joining its board of directors:

• Kwame Dapaah-Afriyie, MD, MBA, FAC, director of hospital medicine at The Miriam Hospital
• Susan DeSanto-Madeya, PhD, APRN-CNS, FAAN, Miriam Weyker Endowed Chair for Palliative Care, University of Rhode Island (URI) College of Nursing
• Audrey E. Kydd, partner, The Gemini Group

The new members bring decades of leadership in medicine, education and organizational strategy to HopeHealth’s board of directors. They join 24 existing members in strategically advising HopeHealth’s home care, palliative and hospice care across Rhode Island, Greater Boston and southeastern Massachusetts.

“Our board of directors is made up of individuals who are not only brilliant and impressive healthcare leaders, but who are personally dedicated to HopeHealth’s mission of dignified, compassionate care. We’re honored to count Dr. Dapaah-Afriyie, Dr. DeSanto-Madeya and Audrey Kydd among this group,” says HopeHealth Board Chair, Vince Mor, PhD.

In addition to founding and now directing the hospitalist program at The Miriam Hospital, Dr. Dapaah-Afriyie was also instrumental in establishing the hospitalist program at Newport Hospital. He is a professor of medicine (clinical educator) at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and a senior fellow in the Society of Hospital Medicine. In 2022, he was elected to lead the Rhode Island Chapter of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. DeSanto-Madeya is the Miriam Weyker Endowed Chair for Palliative Care at URI’s College of Nursing. She has spent much of her career focusing on researching palliative and end-of-life care, with the goal of improving quality of life and quality of care for persons living with serious illness and their families. She studies inequities in serious illness care and improving a patient’s final days through goal-concordant prescribing and end-of-life care.

Prior to becoming partner at the consulting firm, The Gemini Group, Audrey served as the Director of Administration for the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research at Brown University’s School of Public Health, where she led a successful research center with increasing impact; strengthening programming and deepening strategic organizational partnerships. Her expertise has included operations, fiscal management, research administration, and human resources, among many other areas.

“HopeHealth is committed to attracting and retaining healthcare’s finest talent and delivering care with the hope and dignity that patients deserve,” says Diana Franchitto, HopeHealth President & CEO. “In the constantly changing world of healthcare, that takes innovation, expertise, and leaders with a broad range of perspectives. Our board of directors, with the addition of our three newest members, will guide the way to advance HopeHealth’s mission.”

For more information about HopeHealth’s Board of Directors, visit HopeHealthCo.org/About-HopeHealth/Board-of-Directors.


About HopeHealth
For more than a century, HopeHealth has provided high quality, compassionate care to people in various stages of illness in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Its roots began in home care in 1908 and then in hospice in 1976, coming together as HopeHealth in 2011 as a provider of home care, palliative care and hospice care. As the second oldest hospice in the country and one of the largest nonprofit providers of palliative and hospice care in New England, HopeHealth has set the gold standard in serious illness and end-of-life care. HopeHealth is the major teaching affiliate for hospice and palliative care of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

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