SMH Named Among America’s Best Employers for Women

July 28, 2021 – Sarasota

Sarasota Memorial Health Care System has been named among America’s best employers for women, a designation given to less than 1% of large companies nationwide.

Forbes, in partnership with research company Statista, developed a list of the 300 Best Employers for Women after independent surveys of 50,000 Americans, including 30,000 women, working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. The surveyed employees representing 31 industries across the United States were asked to share opinions about their respective employer’s culture, image, opportunities for career development, working conditions, salary and wages and diversity.

SMH ranked in the top 12% of 300 multinational companies, and the top 10% in the “Healthcare & Social” category. The ranking comes on top of a growing list of national accolades for SMH, including several “Best Hospital” rankings and ratings the organization also received today from U.S. News & World Report (see accompanying news release on smh.com/news).

David Verinder, president and CEO of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System, credits the health system’s longstanding mission and vision, and forward-thinking leaders, including the health system’s two female presidents – Lorrie Liang, president of SMH-Sarasota campus, and Sharon Roush, president of the soon-to-open SMH-Venice campus – for helping to build a diverse team dedicated to supporting each other and caring for the community Sarasota Memorial serves.

“Our longstanding vision has been to be the best place to be a patient, the best place to work and the best place to practice medicine, and we are honored to be recognized for achieving that level of excellence on several fronts,” Verinder said. “I am extremely proud to work with such a caring, compassionate team. Our extraordinary leaders and staff truly set us apart.”

Founded in 1925, Sarasota Memorial Health Care System is Sarasota County’s largest employer, with more than 7,000 employees supporting the care of more than 1 million patient visits each year at its flagship 839-bed hospital in Sarasota and expansive network of outpatient and urgent care centers and medical practices spanning the Suncoast.

Lorrie Liang, president of the SMH-Sarasota campus, said the hospital has a commitment to creating an inclusive workplace through strong hiring/retention practices, family-friendly policies, diversity training and leadership development. More than 70% of Sarasota Memorial’s leaders are female, including half of its directors and executive team.

“It’s important to have a diverse team,” Liang said. “When it comes to gender, women bring a valuable and unique set of communication and leadership skills to the table. We tend to be more holistic and focused on strategies that encourage collaboration, creativity and mutual respect, which in turn, results in increased job satisfaction, engagement, productivity and organizational outcomes.”

SMH-Venice campus President Sharon Roush, who is recruiting hundreds of healthcare workers to help open the new Venice (Fla.) hospital this fall, said diversity is especially important in healthcare, where people from every race, gender, age and belief system count on care providers to help them overcome myriad medical and life challenges.

“Diversity increases the cultural and clinical competency of our staff and leads to better care and outcomes for our patients,” said Roush.

For more information about careers at SMH, visit smh.com/careers