Sylvia Getman

Sylvia Getman is a compassionate, transformational healthcare leader and patient advocate. She recently retired with three decades of experience as a healthcare executive, and 20 years as a chief executive officer. Throughout her career, the sustainable provision of rural healthcare was her professional focus and passion.

Ms. Getman served as President and CEO of Adirondack Health, the only full-service health system in the 6.1-million-acre Adirondack Park. For five years, and through one pandemic, she was responsible for the oversight of a 95-bed acute care hospital, a 60-bed skilled nursing facility, physical rehabilitation facilities, and dialysis, primary, dental and specialty care centers serving patients across the North Country.

Under Ms. Getman’s direction, Adirondack Health successfully completed a $40 million construction project, creating a new health and medical fitness center in Lake Placid, and adding a new surgical services wing at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake. She also positioned Adirondack Medical Center as an anchor tenant for the Saranac Lake Community Solar project. Most recently, she managed Adirondack Health’s regional COVID-19 pandemic response that included establishing a mobile testing program to serve outlying geographies and help reopen the North Country economy; proposing the distributed regional State-sponsored test site model (which the State ultimately adopted); and collaborating with Trudeau Institute to create the Stoltz Infectious Disease Testing Center.

Prior to Adirondack Health, Ms. Getman was the top executive at Aroostook Medical Center, a similar-sized health system in Maine, where her proudest accomplishment was the development of a first-in-the-nation compressed natural gas system to power her hospital. At Aroostook, she was a Transformation Fellow of the American Hospital Association.

Ms. Getman also served in top leadership positions at Nantucket Cottage Hospital in Massachusetts, and at Mitchell County Regional Health Center, a 25-bed critical access hospital in northern Iowa. She holds Bachelor's and Master’s Degrees in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ms. Getman has served on several regional boards, including the Adirondacks Accountable Care Organization, Iroquois Healthcare Association, Adirondack Health Institute, Healthcare Trustees of New York State, New York State Association of Rural Health, and North Country Workforce Development Board.