Two associations selected new leaders for their respective organizations, one in the C-suite, the other for a one-year term.

The board for the Western New York Healthcare Association, part of the Healthcare Association of New York State, appointed Kenneth Schoetz president and CEO. Most recently, he served as corporate counsel and executive vice president of business development for Snyder Corp. in Buffalo, N.Y., which provides medical transportation and operates real estate properties. “In this era of upheaval and uncertainty in health care, I am confident WNYHA is in good hands with Ken Schoetz at the helm,” said Bea Grause, HANYS president, in a news release.

The American Medical Association chose its president for the one-year term beginning in June 2018. Barbara McAneny, M.D., an oncologist from Albuquerque, N.M., was named president-elect of the AMA for the next year. McAneny has been a board member since 2010, serving as chair from 2015 to 2016. Previously, she served on the board of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and was the delegate to the AMA from ASCO. She has held many leadership roles in medicine, including president of the New Mexico Medical Society, the Greater Albuquerque Medical Association and the New Mexico Chapter of the American College of Physicians. She also served as chair of the AMA Council of Medical Service from 2009 to 2010.

Other Hospital Leadership News

  • Centura Health’s longest-tenured CEO, Gary Campbell, will retire on Sept. 1. Campbell will be in a new executive position within Centennial, Colo.-based Centura, focused on providing leadership in the areas for which the organization says he has “extreme passion for” — leadership development and optimizing health value. During his time as CEO, Centura expanded the leading health network in Colorado and western Kansas from 11 hospitals to 17; expanded the clinically integrated network, Colorado Health Neighborhoods, to more than 4,000 providers; introduced 19 Neighborhood Health Centers; and increased annual revenue of $1.8 billion to more than $3.5 billion. Peter Banko, president and chief operating officer of Centura, will succeed Campbell and start in the roles of president and CEO on Sept. 1.
  • Elizabeth Wise, R.N., acting president of Lehigh Valley Hospital–Pocono, East Stroudsburg, Pa., was named permanent president in June. She was the COO and chief nursing officer at Pocono Medical Center and Pocono Health System. 
  • Laura Grill, R.N., will become CEO of East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika in October 2018. She has been executive vice president of the hospital. Terry Andrus will retire in October 2018 after serving as CEO since 1984.
  • Harold Courtois is slated to become CEO of Memorial Health System, Abilene, Kan., effective July 24. Courtois is CEO of Russell (Kan.) Regional Hospital.
  • Andrew Barth became CEO of Aspirus Langlade Hospital in Antigo, Wis., in June. Barth was group director of physician alignment and strategy at Centura Health in Englewood, Colo.
  • Jonathan Schiller was named CEO of Catskill Regional Medical Center, Harris, N.Y., in June. Schiller was interim chief financial officer of Greater Hudson Valley Health System, Catskill Regional's parent.
  • Tammie Chavez Stump, R.N., was appointed CEO of Community Hospital Corp.’s Union County General Hospital, Clayton, N.M. Stump served as COO, CNO and compliance officer at Union County General Hospital since 2015.
  • Debbie Knoke retired in June as administrator and CEO of Sequoyah Memorial Hospital, Sallisaw, Okla. She began working at the hospital as a nurse in 1995. Sequoyah Memorial Hospital recently entered into an affiliation with Northeastern Health System in Tahlequah, Okla. Julie Ward, vice president of finance at Northeastern Health System, is expected to serve as interim administrator of the hospital. 

Philanthropy

  • Chicago businessman Craig Duchossois, his wife Janet and the Duchossois Family Foundation will give $100 million to establish the Duchossois Family Institute at The University of Chicago Medicine, which seeks to accelerate research and interventions based on how the human immune system, microbiome and genetics interact to maintain health. In its announcement, the university stated that the gift will support development of a “new science of wellness” aimed at preserving health and complementing medicine’s traditional focus on disease treatment. “Their investment will help build an entrepreneurial infrastructure that stimulates research, data integration and clinical applications, while educating the next generation of young physicians and students in this new science,” according to the announcement. The amount is the largest single gift in support of University of Chicago Medicine and brings the family’s lifetime charitable contributions to the academic medical center to $137 million.

Mergers & Acquisitions

  • The board of trustees for Anna Jaques Hospital, Newburyport, Mass., signed a letter of intent to explore joining the proposed combined system of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Lahey Health and New England Baptist Hospital. Anna Jaques Hospital would become part of an integrated health care delivery system that will extend across Eastern Massachusetts. Anna Jaques Hospital already has a clinical affiliation with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is a member of the Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization network. The combination of these systems will require various state and federal reviews and approvals. Anna Jaques Hospital is an independent, nonprofit community hospital serving 17 cities and towns in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.
  • Reading (Pa.) Health System and subsidiaries of Community Health Systems signed an asset purchase agreement for Reading Health to acquire five Pennsylvania hospitals. The five hospitals include: Brandywine Hospital in Coatesville, Phoenixville Hospital, Pottstown Memorial Medical Center, Jennersville Regional Hospital in West Grove and Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia. The new system will serve a population of 2.5 million. The transaction is expected to close this summer, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.
  • Palmetto Health and Greenville Health System in June announced plans to merge. If the deal clears regulatory hurdles, it would create the largest health system in South Carolina, with 13 hospitals and hundreds of physicians and ambulatory care centers.
  • Four nonprofit health systems in Pennsylvania — Washington Health System, St. Clair Hospital, Butler Health System and Excela Health — in June formed a partnership called Bridges Health Partners. According to a press release, the physician-governed network “is a strategic response to health care reform and transition of reimbursement models by federal, state and managed care payers, which encourage health care providers to maintain patients’ overall good health. … This effort supports moving away from individual, fee-for-service medicine, believed to be a contributing factor in rising health care costs.” Charles R. Vargo, interim executive director, said in the release, “How health care is organized, delivered and reimbursed is transforming toward population health management, [which] means that primary care physicians, specialists, community providers and hospital services familiar with a patient’s unique needs work together to improve his or her health over a lifetime.”
  • Elliot Health System, Manchester, N.H., and Southern New Hampshire Health in Nashua signed a letter of intent to explore a potential partnership. Under the letter of intent, the health systems will exclusively negotiate the formation of a nonprofit organization to govern the combined entity. Each health system will also retain its individual brand and governance structure. The hospitals will construct a definitive agreement, subject to approval by the health systems' respective boards of trustees and state regulatory officials.

Project

  • The University of Mississippi will buy the soon-to-be vacated Baptist Memorial Hospital–North Mississippi in Oxford. The university will pay $22 million for the 15-acre site, which includes a 428,000-square-foot building that university Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter says will be used for "support units and other functions that serve external constituencies." The university is building a replacement hospital nearby, which has been planned since 2009. The university states that the new five-story hospital will have more comprehensive medical and surgical services.