Appointments

•South Nassau Communities Hospital, Oceanside, N.Y., named Richard J. Murphy the next president and chief executive officer. He will succeed Joseph A. Quagliata, who is retiring at the end of 2012. Murphy was president and CEO of Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island in New York.

•Arthur A. Gonzalez became CEO of Denver Health and Hospital Authority on Sept. 4. He was CEO at Hennepin Healthcare System Inc. in Minneapolis.

•Don Webb became CEO of Williamson Medical Center, Franklin, Tenn., on July 27. He had been chief financial officer for the past 16 years.

•Odette Bolano, R.N., became acting president and CEO of St. Joseph Health System, Bryan, Texas, in July. She was executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Carondelet Health Network in Tucson, Ariz.

•Kathleen E. Chavanu Gorman was named chief operations officer and executive vice president of patient care services for Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C. She was senior vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and assistant dean of clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

•Edmund F. Funai, M.D., became COO of the Ohio State University Health System in July. He will continue as associate dean for administration at the College of Medicine.

•Saint Luke's South Hospital CEO Katherine A. Howell, R.N., was named senior vice president and chief nurse executive of Saint Luke's Health System, Overland Park, Kan. She joined the Saint Luke's system in 2001.

•Janis M. Orlowski, M.D., was promoted to COO of MedStar Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center. She will continue as CMO.

•Andrew D. Racine, M.D., was named senior vice president and CMO at Montefiore Medical Center, New York City. He was professor and division chief of general pediatrics at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore/Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

•Brian Matson was appointed senior vice president and chief development officer for Baptist Health Care, Pensacola, Fla. He was vice president of operations transformation for Sacred Heart Health System in Pensacola.

•Peter Brumleve became chief marketing officer of University Hospitals, Cleveland, in July. He was chief marketing officer and chief strategy officer at Scott & White Healthcare in Temple, Texas.

•John Lynch in July became CIO and vice president of information technology for the Greater Hudson Valley Health System, Middletown, N.Y. He was system vice president and CIO for Provena Health, Mokena, Ill.

•Franke P. Elliott was named chief managed care officer of Kindred Healthcare Inc., Louisville, Ky. Elliott was senior vice president of business development for HealthSpring Inc.

•Jeffrey D. Buda became CIO for Floyd Medical Center in Rome, Ga., in July. Previously, he was executive director of business technology for the WellStar Health System in Marietta, Ga.

•Roxana Pool was appointed CNO of LifePoint Hospital's Delta Division. Pool has been CNO and COO at LifePoint's Southern Tennessee Medical Center and interim CEO at LifePoint's Hillside Hospital in Pulaski, Tenn.
Retirements

•Thomas Herron, CEO of HCA's TriStar Centennial Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn., since 2006, will retire on Dec. 31. Under his leadership, TriStar Centennial added 71 licensed beds, renovated the TriStar Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, expanded service lines in the recently renamed TriStar Centennial Women's & Children's hospital, and opened the Heart and Vascular Center.

•Richard M. Reynolds, president and CEO of MidMichigan Health, Midland, Mich., will retire next year. He joined the MidMichigan Medical Center–Midland in 1980 as vice president for finance and held various executive positions prior to becoming president and CEO in 2008. Under his leadership, the system added health malls, medical offices and physician practices in several locations, and an open-heart cardiovascular program. It also became the site for Michigan State University's graduate medical education program and will partner with Central Michigan University's College of Medicine this fall.

Death

•R. Timothy Stack, president and CEO of Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta since December 2001, died July 30 at age 60. Under his leadership, Piedmont grew from two hospitals and eight physician practices to a $1.6 billion organization with five hospitals, more than 50 primary care and specialty physician practices and a 900-member, clinically integrated physician network. Stack served on numerous committees and regional boards for the American Hospital Association and in 2011, he was named to the AHA board of trustees. During his career, he also chaired the Georgia Hospital Association board and was the incoming chair for the Georgia Association of Community Hospitals. Among numerous honors, he received the AHA's Grassroots Champion Award in 2010. Previously, Stack was president and CEO of Borgess Health Alliance and president and CEO of Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo, Mich.; president and CEO of South Side Healthcare System in Pittsburgh; and senior vice president and COO of Central Medical Center and Hospital in Pittsburgh. He is survived by his wife Mary and three sons.

•Vergil N. Slee, M.D., an innovator in health care administration, patient data and clinical coding, died July 31 in St. Paul, Minn., at 94.

Slee graduated from medical school at Washington University in St. Louis in 1941 and served a medical internship at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. He was a flight surgeon for the Air Force in 1942, serving in China with Chenault's Flying Tigers. After earning a master's in public health from the University of Michigan, he was named director of the Barry County (Mich.) Health Department, and then director of the Barry County Health Department and Pennock Hospital. He be-lieved there must be a better way to organize patient records to im-prove both care and hospital administration. In 1953, with a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, he founded the Professional Activity Study, the prototype of computerized hospital discharge abstract systems that most hospitals use today. In 1956, it became the Commission on Professional and Hospital Activities, sponsored by the American Hospital Association, American College of Physicians, American College of Surgeons, American Medical Association and the Southwestern Michigan Hospital Council. He was president until 1980.

In cooperation with the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, Slee was a founder of the Council on Clinical Classifications, which developed the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM). He served as president from 1976 to 1980.

His wife of 66 years, Beth, died in 2007. He is survived by four children and seven grandchildren.

Major Gift

•San Diego developer Conrad Prebys donated $45 million to Scripps Health toward a new acute care hospital tower to be named the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute. The $456 million institute will open in 2015 integrating cardiovascular programs throughout the Scripps Health and Kaiser Permanente systems.