FutureMedLA Reveals 2026 L.A. Healthcare Awards Honorees

FutureMedLA Foundation announces 2026 honorees recognizing leadership in healthcare access, advocacy, community health, innovation and journalism

LOS ANGELES — At a moment when Los Angeles County is confronting profound changes in healthcare funding, coverage and access, the FutureMedLA Foundation has announced the honorees for the 13th Annual Los Angeles Healthcare Awards, recognizing individuals and organizations whose work is responding to many of those challenges in real time.

The 13th Annual Los Angeles Healthcare Awards will take place from 6 to 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, 9500 Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills. Tickets and sponsorship opportunities are currently available through FutureMedLA.

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The 2026 honorees are Martha Santana-Chin, Healthcare Visionary of the Year; Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, Health Advocacy Champion; Jim Mangia, Community Impact Award; Homeboy Industries, Innovation in Healthcare Solutions Award; and the LAist Health Coverage Team, Shine the Light Media Award. Dr. Kenneth Sim will receive the inaugural LACMA Legacy Award, a special honor selected by the FutureMedLA Board of Directors.

The awards will be presented Friday, Nov. 13, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. Now in its 13th year, the event brings together physicians, healthcare executives, policymakers, philanthropists and community leaders from across the region.

FutureMedLA, the charitable arm of the Los Angeles County Medical Association, invests in physician leadership development, medical students and community-driven healthcare solutions through scholarships, training, mentorship and grants.

2026 HONOREES

Martha Santana-Chin: Healthcare Visionary of the Year

Santana-Chin, president and CEO of L.A. Care Health Plan, is being recognized as Los Angeles County faces one of the most consequential periods for its healthcare safety net in decades.

She leads the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan, with more than 2.2 million enrollees, and has emerged as a prominent voice on the implications of federal Medicaid changes. In January, Santana-Chin warned that changes under HR 1 could result in as many as 650,000 people leaving L.A. Care’s Medi-Cal rolls by the end of 2028. Her connection to the issue is personal: the daughter of Mexican immigrants, she relied on Medi-Cal during her childhood.

Her selection recognizes not only her role leading one of the country’s largest safety-net health plans, but her work bringing healthcare stakeholders together around coverage preservation, provider stability and the long-term viability of care for vulnerable Angelenos.

Dr. Kenneth Sim: LACMA Legacy Award

Dr. Kenneth Sim, co-founder and executive chairman of Astrana Health, will receive the inaugural LACMA Legacy Award, a FutureMedLA Board-selected special honor recognizing sustained contributions to medicine and physician leadership.

Sim has spent decades developing physician-led healthcare infrastructure designed to help independent physicians participate in coordinated and value-based care. The organization he helped build now supports more than 20,000 providers caring for approximately 1.55 million patients through relationships with more than 20 payers nationwide.

The Legacy Award is not part of the annual nomination process and is intended to be presented selectively. Sim’s recognition reflects both the longevity of his work and the scale to which the physician-centered model he helped establish has grown.

Supervisor Hilda L. Solis: Health Advocacy Champion

Supervisor Hilda L. Solis is being honored for public-sector leadership at the intersection of healthcare access, environmental health and emergency response.

Solis was among the visible supporters of Measure ER, the temporary half-cent Los Angeles County sales tax approved by voters in June. The measure is expected to generate roughly $1 billion annually to help support the county’s healthcare safety net amid substantial federal and state funding reductions.

Her 2026 public health leadership also extended to the massive cold-storage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights. As Board Chair, Solis issued a local emergency proclamation and subsequently advanced measures supporting environmental monitoring, residents, workers and businesses affected by the fire and its prolonged air-quality and public-health consequences.

Jim Mangia: Community Impact Award

For Jim Mangia, president and CEO of St. John’s Community Health, the 2026 honor centers on his role in the successful effort to pass Measure ER.

Mangia became one of the campaign’s most prominent healthcare voices, arguing that the rapidly changing funding environment threatened hospitals, community clinics and the broader network of care serving lower-income residents. Following the June election, he joined county leaders in announcing the measure’s narrow victory.

The recognition builds on Mangia’s longstanding work in community-based healthcare but focuses on a particularly consequential achievement this year: mobilizing support for a local response to a funding crisis with implications across Los Angeles County’s interconnected healthcare system.

Homeboy Industries: Innovation in Healthcare Solutions

Homeboy Industries is being honored for an approach to healthcare that reaches well beyond a traditional clinical setting.

Founded in Los Angeles, the organization works with formerly incarcerated and formerly gang-involved individuals through a model that combines behavioral health services, substance use disorder treatment, case management, reentry support, employment and community connection.

That model is entering a significant new phase with Home of the Angels, a behavioral health campus that broke ground in March. Supported by nearly $25 million in state Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program funding, the project will include a 50-bed residential substance use disorder treatment facility, 10 peer-respite beds and 40 outpatient treatment slots. It will bring licensed residential treatment onto a Homeboy Industries campus for the first time.

The award recognizes Homeboy’s distinctly Los Angeles approach to addressing trauma, recovery and reentry through a more integrated continuum of care.

LAist Health Coverage Team: Shine the Light Media Award

The LAist Health Coverage Team will receive the Shine the Light Media Award for journalism that helps Angelenos navigate an increasingly complex healthcare environment.

Its recent coverage has examined Medi-Cal eligibility and coverage changes, mental health services, public-health threats and the financing of Los Angeles County’s healthcare safety net. LAist also closely followed Measure ER from the campaign through the final vote count and aftermath, explaining both the measure’s potential impact and questions surrounding how the revenue will be used.

The award recognizes journalism not simply as observation, but as a public resource that translates complicated policy decisions into information residents can use.

The six honorees reflect a 2026 healthcare landscape in which the lines between medicine, public policy, social services, journalism and community action are increasingly interconnected.