Tory Irgang introduced our speaker – Tracy Gates, who serves as President of UPMC Chautauqua in Jamestown, where she is responsible for the strategic, operational, and cultural leadership of one of UPMC’s regional hospitals. She joined UPMC in 2025, bringing more than two decades of executive experience across community hospitals, integrated delivery networks, long-term care, and multi-site physician enterprises.
Before joining UPMC, Tracy served as Senior Vice President/Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of System Integration for Cayuga Health System (now Centralus Health), a multi-hospital regional system that recently expanded to form a five-hospital integrated delivery network. In this role, she oversaw operations for three hospitals, two skilled nursing facilities, and a large multi-specialty provider group, while co-leading the systemwide integration strategy aligning Cayuga Health with Arnot Healtrh. Her work included operational redesign, service-line growth, workforce stabilization, accountability frameworks, and value-based care readiness initiatives.
Tracy is known for leading large-scale operational turnarounds and building resilient leadership teams. At Cayuga/Centralus, she implemented business unit accountability structures, created real-time KPI dashboards, established weekly operational performance cadences, and co-led the creation of full-service COVID testing laboratory serving regional and national customers. She also led post-pandemic financial stabilization efforts, improved provider alignment, expanded access across key service lines, and advanced multiple capital expansion projects across the system.
Prior to her system-level COO role, Tracy served as VP, Chief Operating Officer at Cortland Regional Medical Center, where she stabilized a large, multi-specialty medical group, improved operational and financial performance, implemented high-reliability safety structures, and led the organization out of an immediate jeopardy citation shortly after her
arrival. Her leadership was instrumental in preparing the organization for a successful affiliation with Guthrie.
Earlier in her career, Tracy held senior financial leadership roles as VP, Chief Financial Officer at Jones Memorial Hospital and VP, Chief Financial Officer at Schuyler Hospital and Long Term Care Facility, where she delivered the first positive operating margin in over a decade at Jones and implemented major revenue cycle, productivity, and financial restructuring initiatives and consistently improved operational performance, employee satisfaction, and physician engagement across multiple organizations.
Throughout her career, Tracy has championed patient access, service-line expansion, operational reliability, and workforce engagement. She is widely recognized for her transparent, relationship-centered leadership style and her ability to stabilize teams during periods of significant change.
She holds an MBA from Empire State College and has served on multiple community and professional boards, including the Watkins Glen Chamber of Commerce, Tompkins County Health Planning Council, Western New York HFMA, United Way, and several statewide and regional committees focused on planning, contracting, and population health.
Tracy began her presentation by introducing the UPMC Chautauqua’s mission statement which is to improve the health and well-being of the people of Chautauqua County and surrounding area that includes: compassion and dedication; a commitment to quality and patient safety; and maintaining economic growth and a vision for the 21st Century.
Ms. Gates then refreshed our memories regarding the history of the hospital from a Women’s Boarding House (with a one room hospital bed) in 1885 to the hospital today. The boarding house was converted to the Women’s Christian Association hospital in 1907. Many services were added in the 1900’s and then in the 2000’s those services were expanded upon.
As of 2026, UPMC had a 14 bed ICU, 75 Medical/Surgical Inpatient beds, 30 mental health beds (20 adult/10 young people), 15 addiction medicine inpatient beds, 20 residential treatment beds, 28 emergency room beds (30,000 visits annually), 6 operating rooms (9,000 cases annually) and 2 endoscopy (6,000 cases annually) rooms. The hospital also provides oncology services at the Hillman Cancer Center, robust imaging services, laboratory services, and cardiology and interventional radiology services.
UPMC Chautauqua has 1,100 hospital employees and Great Lakes Physician Practice (GLPP) has 300 employees in 15 plus locations in addition to a robust volunteer program with 18 active volunteers (including our own Pat Kinney) currently. The hospital has had positive financial performances in 2025 and 2026 YTD.
GLPP has physician specialists in family and internal medicine, cardiology, gastroenterology, general surgery, oncology, nephrology, podiatry, orthopedics, pulmonary medicine, women’s health and physical medicine and rehab (pain). In addition, the Alstar EMS ambulance service is a subsidiary of UPMC and provides ambulance and livery services with an average of 40 calls each day and Stat Med Evac provides air transport and is located on the hospital campus.
According to statistics provided by the Hospital Association of New York State (HANYS), UPMC Chautauqua provides $305,000,000 in economic activity generated through jobs and the purchase of goods and services; payroll expenditures of $71,000,000 including salary and benefits to employees; 1,700 jobs are supported; $30,000,000 in tax dollars is generated; and $26,000,000 is generated in community benefits and investments.
229,000 outpatients were seen; 38,000 people were treated in the emergency room; 6,300 people were admitted to the hospital; and 700 babies were delivered. At UPMC Chautauqua, 77% of all people admitted to the hospital were covered by Medicare and Medicaid and 88% of all outpatients were covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Focus areas for financial sustainability at UPMC for all patients are access to care, the experience of patients and quality of care. UPMC will focus on improving workforce turnover, recruitment and retention of care providers and investment in infrastructure such as buildings and equipment.
Upcoming Projects and investments at UPMC Chautauqua are: WCA Foundation funded mammography improvements and anesthesia machines and UPMC is funding the addition of 6 new operating rooms at a cost of $30,000,000; a new boiler plant; parking lot improvements; new EKG machines; and within the next week - all new patient beds!
The audience then had questions for Ms. Gates.
