Appointments
• Frederick H. Kuriger became chief executive officer of Catskill Regional Medical Center, Harris, N.Y., on Dec. 30. He was executive vice president/chief operating officer/corporate responsibility officer at Seton Health System in Troy, N.Y.
• Lynn Olson became CEO of Hannibal (Mo.) Regional Hospital on Dec. 5. He was CEO of Sanford Worthington (Minn.) Medical Center.
• Shore Health System, Easton, Md., appointed Kenneth D. Kozel president and CEO. SHS is a member of the University of Maryland Medical System. He was president of the two hospitals that comprise Upper Chesapeake Health in Harford County, Md.
• The board of managers of Parkland Health & Hospital System, Dallas, selected Thomas C. Royer, M.D., interim CEO. He was president and CEO of Christus Health. Effective Jan. 1, current CEO Ron J. Anderson, M.D., will take the role of senior adviser to the CEO.
• Dian Powell, a member of the Roseland Community Hospital board, Chicago, replaced both CEO Earmon Irons Jr. and President Catherine Nichols on Dec. 1. Powell is the retired executive director of a center run by a social services agency, Metropolitan Family Services, and serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations.
• Douglas A. Zehner joined the Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center as senior vice president and chief financial officer. He was CFO at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver. Washington Hospital Center is a member of the MedStar Health system.
• The Ohio Hospital Association, Columbus, named Mike Abrams president and CEO. OHA represents 167 hospitals and 19 health systems. He succeeds Jim Castle, who retired Dec. 31 after 23 years at the helm. Abrams had been executive vice president and CEO of the Iowa Medical Society since 1996.
• Kindred Healthcare Inc., Louisville, Ky., appointed Marc Rothman, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer for the nursing center division. He succeeds Keith Krein, M.D., who becomes senior vice president of medical affairs for the division. Rothman was a practicing geriatrician with the Permanente Medical Group at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center.
• Texas Regional Medical Center at Sunnyvale named Ben Dunford CFO. He had led the Dallas office of global management consulting firm Bain & Co.
• G. Daniel Shealer Jr. was appointed vice president and general counsel of the Johns Hopkins Health System Corp. and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He succeeds Joanne Pollack, who became chief of staff to the Office of Johns Hopkins Medicine in July. Shealer had been the health system's general counsel for the past 17 years.
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center HealthCare system named Deloris Simpson Tuggle vice president of human resources and organizational development and chief human resources officer. She was senior director of human resources and interim senior vice president of human resources Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
• Medical City Dallas Hospital appointed Joyce Soule vice president of perioperative services for Medical City and Medical City Children's Hospital. Soule was the perioperative services director for Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Bedford.
• Julie Bartels was appointed executive vice president of national health information at the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value in Appleton, Wis. Since 2006, Bartels was CEO of the Wisconsin Health Information Organization.
• Alan D. Aviles, president and CEO of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, was named to the board of trustees of the American Hospital Association.
• Anthony J. Marino, M.D., was named medical director of maternal and child services at CentraState Healthcare System, Freehold, N.J. He was co-director of the division of neonatology and special care nursery at University Medical Center at Princeton.
• Don Caruso, M.D., was appointed medical director of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene (N.H.), and he will share leadership responsibilities with Cheshire Medical Center President and CEO Arthur W. Nichols. Caruso was chair of the department of family medicine at DHK from 1993 to 2005 and he was associate medical director from 2005 until his recent appointment as medical director.
• The Joint Commission, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., appointed George Mills director of the newly formed department of engineering. He was director of facilities, consulted and held national positions related to codes and standards, including director of codes and compliance for the American Society for Healthcare Engineering.
• William Adair, M.D., was appointed vice president of clinical transformation at Advocate Christ Medical Center and Hope Children's Hospital, Oak Lawn, Ill. He was named interim vice president of clinical transformation earlier this year and will continue as the medical center's clinical data leader. Adair has been a member of the Advocate Christ Medical Center medical staff for 25 years.
• The George Washington University Hospital, Washington, D.C., named Eric Stokes associate administrator in November. He was associate administrator, and director of business development at Tenet Healthcare's Doctors Hospital at White Rock Lake in Dallas.
Mergers
•HCA, Nashville, Tenn., in December completed the sale of Palmyra Medical Center in Albany, Ga., to the Hospital Authority of Albany-Doughtery County for about $198 million.
• Community Health Systems Inc., Franklin, Tenn., executed a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of 26-bed Roswell (N.M.) Regional Hospital. A separate subsidiary currently operates 162-bed Eastern New Mexico Medical Center, also located in Roswell. The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2012. When the acquisition is completed, Roswell Regional Hospital will become the seventh Community Health Systems Inc.-affiliated hospital in New Mexico.
• Capella Healthcare and Saint Thomas Health signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture. Based in Nashville, Tenn., Saint Thomas Health includes five hospitals affiliated with Ascension Health Ministry. Capella Healthcare, based in Franklin, Tenn., operates 15 hospitals in seven states. The pending partnership will result in the joint ownership and operation of Capella's four middle Tennessee hospitals. Capella hospitals included in the joint venture are River Park Hospital in McMinnville, White County Community Hospital in Sparta, DeKalb Community Hospital in Smithville and Stones River Hospital in Woodbury. These hospitals will operate as part of the Saint Thomas Health Network, which will hold an equity interest. In addition, Saint Thomas Health will become the tertiary care partner for the hospitals within the new venture. Capella will be the managing member and the majority partner in the new venture.
Projects
• The Department of Veterans Affairs will build the Denver VA Medical Center replacement facility on the same campus as the University of Colorado Hospital complex in Aurora, site of the former Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. The 182-bed medical center will include inpatient tertiary care and ambulatory care, a 30-bed Spinal Cord Injury/Disorder Center, a 30-bed nursing home community living center and a research building.The construction component of the contract, totaling $580.2 million, was awarded to Kiewit-Turner Joint Venture, Englewood, Colo. Completion is slated for early 2015.
• Commercial real estate developer Duke Realty and North Fulton Hospital broke ground on a 54,000-square-foot, $12.8 million medical office building in Roswell, Ga. The building, which will be developed, financed, owned and managed by Duke Realty, will house North Fulton Hospital's Pain Management Clinic and Imaging Center services, as well as other physicians and health care practices. The MOB is expected to be completed and open for business in the fall of 2012. The architect is ASD of Atlanta and the general contractor is the Atlanta office of Brasfield & Gorrie.
• Hurley Medical Center, Flint, Mich., announced the formation of the Hurley Children's Hospital, a hospital within the hospital, to consolidate children's medical services, including pediatric intensive care, pediatric oncology, an asthma program, the region's highest-level neonatal intensive care unit, high-risk pregnancy care and pediatric emergency room.
• Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's Hospital, Spokane, Wash., began construction of a 28,000-square-foot emergency department addition and renovation that will incorporate a new 24-hour entry for both the pediatric and adjacent adult emergency departments. The expansion includes 24,000 square feet of new construction, most of it allocated for pediatric care. The pediatric department will have 15 exam rooms, two treatment rooms, one trauma bay and one medical mental health room circling a large, open-plan physicians and nurse station. Construction cost is $18.6 million, with completion targeted for March 2013.
• Indianapolis-based Community Health Network, in partnership with Centerre Healthcare, Nashville, Tenn., will build a $23 million state-of-the-art inpatient rehabilitation hospital in northeast Indianapolis. The 63,000-square-foot, 60-bed rehab hospital will feature all-private rooms; a designated 28-bed brain injury wing, with specialized beds, monitored rooms, patient lifts in rooms and dedicated therapy space; a 16-bed stroke unit; a bariatric room; special apartment to help family and patients practice daily living tasks; and family-friendly sleeper chairs in all rooms. Groundbreaking is scheduled for summer with completion in 2013.
• Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, held a ribbon-cutting in December to signify completion of a $654 million, 14-story, 830,000-square-foot hospital tower. The tower is the major component of Rush's 10-year, $1 billion campus redevelopment project. The new building has 304 adult and critical care beds on the . Rush will have a total of 664 beds in operation across the existing and the new facilities. The ground floor will house the McCormick Foundation Center for Advanced Emergency Response. The center houses an expanded emergency department with 60 treatment bays with a surge capacity of 133 percent. It includes 42 procedure rooms with enlarged operating rooms to accommodate new technology. The third floor houses the Mary Jo and John Boler Center for Advanced Imaging. Perkins+Will was the architect and the project was managed by Power/Jacobs Joint Venture.
• The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, in November became the official owner of the new 1.6 million-square-foot facility that will house the Sheikh Zayed Tower and the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center. The facility will have 560 all-private patient rooms, 33 operating rooms, and new emergency departments for adults and children. The facility also will house the Johns Hopkins Heart and Vascular Institute. The facilities will open to patients on April 29.
Opening
• Kindred Healthcare Inc., Louisville, Ky., opened Kindred Hospital Seattle-First Hill, a 50-bed freestanding long-term acute care hospital with six ICU beds in all private rooms. Kindred also opened a 30-bed co-located, hospital-based subacute unit offering transitional care services. Kindred recently opened Kindred Hospital-Las Vegas at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals-Rose de Lima Campus in Henderson, Nev. The LTAC hospital replaces a hospital that was located in Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas. The new hospital has 28 LTAC beds and six private rooms dedicated to intensive care.
Closing
• Maxis Health System will close Marian Community Hospital, Carbondale, Pa., by Feb. 28. Maxis said the average daily census of 20 inpatients over six months was not sufficient to sustain fully staffed operations for the long term. The hospital is licensed for 70 beds.
Award
• James M. Sanger, president and CEO of SSM Health Care-St. Louis, received the Missouri Hospital Association's 2011 Visionary Leadership Award. The award acknowledges Sanger for helping build a public-private collaboration that addressed the sudden closing of the short-term acute care psychiatric unit and emergency room at the state-sponsored St. Louis Metropolitan Psychiatric Center. It also recognizes his success with integration and quality efforts at SSM Health Care-St. Louis.
