Meet the 2024-2025 RE Team!
Meet the 2024-2025 Regional Executive (RE) Team! Each one of HFMA’s 11 regions has one individual that is elected by the chapter presidents-elect to serve as their Regional Executive on the Regional Executive Council. The Regional Executive Council sets policy and goals related to the Chapter Dashboard, Davis Chapter Management System, and Founders Merit Award Program.
Jessica Yard
Regional Executive
Jessica began her membership with HFMA in the McMahon-Illini Chapter of which she is the past-president for 2022-2023. During that year she led the chapter through the merger with the Southern Illinois Chapter to become the Greater Illinois Chapter. She has received the Bronze, Silver, and Gold merit awards during her time in HFMA. Additionally, she has earned the EHRC, CRCR, and CSBI, certifications through HFMA.
Jessica spent 12 years working for providers both small and large, for-profit and non-profit before joining Healthfuse. She serves as the Vice President of Operations overseeing several operational teams to help hospitals and health system strengthen and protect their bottom line so they can protect and strengthen their patient communities. She credits her success in this industry with having strong relationships throughout the HFMA network as well as some very influential mentors along the way. Her passion for mentoring has led her to present at several chapters throughout the country on that very topic.
Jessica has a bachelor’s degree in business administration, management, and organizational behavior from Benedictine University and a master’s degree in business administration from LSU Shreveport.
Brian Pavona
Regional Executive 2
Brian is a public accounting executive with over 20 years providing audit and advisory services to leading healthcare organizations, including hospitals and health systems, community health centers/FQHCs, provider clinics, and other healthcare- and wellness-related organizations.
Brian is a member of the AICPA’s Health Care Entities Expert Panel which serves the needs of AICPA members on financial and business reporting and audit and attest matters specific to healthcare. As part of the panel, Brian works to protect the public interest by bringing together knowledgeable parties in the health care industry to deliberate and come to agreement on key health care issues.
He is a recent Past President of the First Illinois Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) Chapter, is a HFMA Region Executive (Region 7) and he is also a member of the Illinois CPA Society.
He has extensive experience auditing and advising clients on internal controls and processes, risk and
reimbursement, grants and related compliance, critical allowances and reserves, revenue recognition, lease accounting, investments, business combinations, conduit and other debt issuances, contributions, CARES Act funding and other risk areas. He frequently advises clients on matters important to their forecasting/budgeting, accounting/financial reporting, and compliance.
Brian is a graduate of Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in accounting.
Lisa Earl
Regional Executive 3
Lisa has been an HFMA member for 20+ years and has been an Indiana Pressler Memorial chapter volunteer for more than 12 years. Lisa has served on the Communication Committee, Education Committee, the Board of Directors and four years as a Chapter Executive (Secretary, Vice President, President-Elect and President). In her most recent year as Past President, she also chaired the Membership Committee. Lisa has received the Bronze and Silver merit awards and has served as a volunteer for the HFMA Annual Conference for two years.
Lisa has spent the last 20+ years of her career at Ascension in progressive roles in Financial Accounting and Reporting, from a small specialty cardiac hospital, to statewide corporate accounting, nationwide foundation accounting, and most currently on the Oracle ERP implementation team as the Finance General Ledger lead. Lisa is also the Enterprise Membership Coordinator for Ascension and participates in a quarterly HFMA 101 webinar for new associates. As an HFMA volunteer, her membership has provided tremendous returns both professionally and personally.
Lisa has a bachelor’s degree in Business from Indiana University Kelley School of Business and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. She is a Certified Public Accountant and is a Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association.