OPEN MINDS Announces The 2026 Workforce Best Practices Summit For Health & Human Services, Sponsored By Qualifacts
Gettysburg, PA (August 8, 2026)—OPEN MINDS announced The 2026 OPEN MINDS Health & Human Services Workforce Best Practices Summit, sponsored by Qualifacts, a full-day summit for the executives responsible for building and sustaining the health and human services workforce, taking place Wednesday, September 30, 2026, within The 2026 OPEN MINDS Executive Leadership Retreat at The Hotel Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Across health and human services, demand for care keeps climbing while the workforce to deliver it keeps thinning, and turnover and burnout widen the gap every year. The 2026 OPEN MINDS Health & Human Services Workforce Best Practices Summit is built around the reality that workforce strategy has become organizational strategy. Chaired by Jane E. Hyde, Ph.D., Senior Associate at OPEN MINDS, the full-day summit will provide executives with field-tested approaches to retaining top talent, developing future leaders, and building the workforce needed for long-term organizational success.
Peggy Kelly, LPC-S, Chief Executive Officer of Youth Home, and Patricia Wilcox, LCSW, Vice President of Strategic Development at Klingberg Family Centers, open the day on sustaining top professionals. They address vicarious trauma and burnout while sharing practical strategies that help organizations support staff resilience, recover from crisis, and retain high-performing employees.
Sterling Haukom Anderson, LPC, Director of Workforce Development at Thresholds, takes up the leadership pipeline, including one of the hardest questions in the field right now: how to develop and retain leaders across four working generations at once. She will discuss how to build a structured, multi-year leadership strategy.
The summit’s Lunch & Learn, sponsored by Qualifacts, will explore one of today’s most pressing operational decisions: whether to keep revenue cycle functions in-house, outsource them, or adopt a co-sourced model as margins tighten and workforce shortages persist. Executives will weigh the true cost and organizational readiness behind keeping revenue cycle work in-house against handing it off and make the case for the co-sourced path many organizations now take.
Jeffrey Ralph, Ed.D., Chief Operating Officer of JusticeWorks, and Jodi Harding, LPCC-S, LICDC, Chief Operating Officer of Talbert House, will discuss leadership through change. From restructured services to new technology, they will demonstrate how executives align teams around a clear vision and build resilient organizational cultures capable of sustaining change over time.
Stuart Buttlaire, Ph.D., MBA, Vice President of Clinical Excellence & Leadership at OPEN MINDS, closes with an interactive session on the ethical use of AI in workforce management. Using real-world scenarios, leaders will weigh the legal and ethical deliberations that AI requires for recruiting and scheduling while maintaining employee trust and accountability.
“You can’t execute a strategy you don’t have the people to run,” said Monica E. Oss, Chief Executive Officer of OPEN MINDS. “We built this summit for the executives who treat their workforce as their greatest strategic asset, and who want the practices to act on it.”
Access to the Workforce Best Practices Summit is included with registration to The 2026 OPEN MINDS Executive Leadership Retreat.
Registration is now open. Registration is included with membership in the OPEN MINDS Circle Market Intelligence Service; members have received a code by email. Non-members can register at leadership.openminds.com.
The full agenda can be found at leadership.openminds.com/agenda.
For questions about OPEN MINDS educational programs, sponsorship opportunities, or media inquiries, contact the Executive Education Events team at events@openminds.com or 717-334-1329.
Premier Partners & Exhibitors
OPEN MINDS institutes are made possible by OPEN MINDS premier partners, Alera Health, Cantata Health Solutions, Core Solutions, Netsmart, PayerTrends, Qualifacts, RECADEMY, Spectrum Healthcare, and Trillium Health Resources.
Featured exhibitors and knowledge partner speaking sponsors for the 2026 Executive Leadership Retreat include Alera Health, Amigo, Clinically AI, Core Solutions, and MedTrainer.
About OPEN MINDS
OPEN MINDS is a national market intelligence, management consulting, and marketing services firm specializing exclusively in the high-needs consumer market: mental health, addiction treatment, cognitive disabilities, chronic health conditions, elder services, health-related social needs, and adjacent markets within the health and human service field. The OPEN MINDS mission is to provide payers, service provider organizations, pharmaceutical, technology, and scientific firms that serve these consumers with the market and management knowledge needed to improve their organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Learn more at openminds.com.