10 things to know about Geisinger's new CEO: Dr. David Feinberg

David Feinberg, MD, former UCLA Hospital System CEO, was appointed to take the top seat at Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health System on Monday. A hands-on clinician leader, Dr. Feinberg says after studying Geisinger for the last six years, he cannot be more excited for the new role.

Here are 10 things to know about Dr. Feinberg.

1. Dr. Feinberg, 53, assumed his post as CEO of UCLA Hospital System in 2007. He will begin his tenure as Geisinger's sixth CEO on May 1, replacing Glenn Steele, MD, PhD. Dr. Steele has led the system since 2001.

2. Dr. Feinberg is triple board-certified in child and adolescent psychiatry, adult psychiatry and addiction psychiatry. His areas of clinical expertise include attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and adolescent substance abuse. He plans to continue seeing patients at Geisinger.

3. Dr. Feinberg's leadership style is distinct in that he makes an effort to remain accessible to patients, even sharing his business card and cell phone number. "When I got this job, I went into patient rooms because I was really scared," he told Becker's Hospital Review in 2011. "There was a lot about running a large academic medical center that I didn't know. I spent time with patients to decrease my anxiety — it was something I knew how to do. Now I visit patients because it's the most fun part of the job."

4. Dr. Feinberg admits traditional ways new leaders meet their new staff and fit into the culture aren't his style. "I like to get to know the people on the frontlines. You can find me in the kitchen talking to the cooking staff and nutritionists or in the halls with the nurses," he says. According to Dr. Feinberg, the most valuable tool a leader has is his ears, and the best way to learn about a new organization is to listen to the people providing the care.

5. When he assumed his role at UCLA, two out of three patients would not refer the system to a friend. Patient satisfaction scores grew from the 38th to 99th percentile under Dr. Feinberg's tenure, but he expressed the need for further improvement. "I'm the most critical of all — 99th percentile patient satisfaction sucks," he told Becker's. "That puts us in 99th percentile among hospitals, so 85 out of 100 patients would recommend us to family or friends. All that means to me is that we have failed miserably with 15 patients and families. And I wanted those patients treated like my family. I'm critical of myself everyday. We can't ever mess up. We need 100 out of 100 patients to be satisfied, and it has to stay that way. This 99th percentile is terrible, but it's much better than where we started."

6. Dr. Feinberg earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated with distinction from the Chicago Medical School and completed an internship in pediatrics at Loyola University Medical Center and residency and fellowship training in psychiatry and child psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Feinberg earned his MBA from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

7. Geisinger is known for its physician-led structure and innovations to improve patient care and access. UCLA Health System has and continues to deliver a range of innovations, bolstered by its Institute for Innovation in Health. "There are a lot of paths into our innovation center. Some ideas come from those working directly in innovation. They might have a brand new idea or they might have seen something somewhere else that might make sense [at UCLA], so they bring it into the council," Dr. Feinberg told Becker's in 2013. "Or it could come from anyone in the workforce. We try to really be out there, looking for ideas from the frontline."

8. Dr. Feinberg is insistent that innovation does not always mean reinventing the wheel. In 2013, the system standardized a common greeting to incoming phone calls: This is UCLA Health. Would you like to be seen today? "Cleveland Clinic has been [answering phones] this way for years," Dr. Feinberg said on a phone call. "We want to make that model [specific to UCLA] but also say, 'Hey look, we're humble. We didn't come up with this on our own.'"

9. Dr. Feinberg gave a Tedx Talk in 2011 about the patient experience and his singular focus on the patient. Illustrated with personal vignettes, Dr. Feinberg discusses the opportunity for improving the quality of healthcare simply by increasing focus on the patient experience.

10. Dr. Feinberg welcomes the move to Pennsylvania — despite the arctic cold the East is experiencing. His wife Andrea, also a physician, is originally from New York. Both of their children currently live on the East Coast, with one living in New York and the other attending the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

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