24 Hospital Leaders to Know

1. Jack Bovender Jr. — Jack Bovender Jr. is the chairman and CEO of Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). He assumed this role in January 2002. Prior to this position, Jack served as HCA's executive vice president and COO for about ten years, and was division president of HCA's Atlanta division and president of HCA's Eastern Group Operations. Prior to joining HCA, Jack served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy, and as CEO of Medical Center Hospital in Largo, Fla., and West Florida Regional Medical Center in Pensacola, both owned at the time by HCA.

2. Irene Cumming — Irene Cumming has served as the president and CEO of University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) in Oak Brook, Ill., an alliance of 101 academic medical centers and 178 of their affiliated hospitals representing approximately 90 percent of the nation's non-profit academic medical centers, for more than 12 years. She oversees corporate operations and performance, formulates and executes the organization's strategy, and represents UHC to the business and healthcare communities and the public. Ms. Cumming joined UHC after serving as president and CEO of the University of Kansas Hospital Authority for 11 years.

3. Delos M. "Toby"Cosgrove — Dr. Toby Cosgrove is the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. He is a renowned heart surgeon and has numerous patents filed for developing medical and clinical products used in surgical procedures, including the Cosgrove Mitral Valve Retractor, the Stentless Aortic Valve, Low Velocity Aortic Cannula, and the Cosgrove-Baxter Annuloplasty System for use in valve repairs. He has published hundreds of articles and many training and continuing medical education films covering such topics as blood conservation in cardiac surgery and aortic valve repair.

4. Trevor Fetter — Trevor Fetter has served as president and CEO of Tenet Healthcare Corporation since September 2003 and also serves as a member of the company's board of directors. During Mr. Fetter's tenure, he has helped achieve a peace accord with organized labor and resolved all major litigation facing the company. Under his leadership, Tenet has worked to find solutions to the national uninsurance challenge; Tenet's Compact With Uninsured Patients has become a model for the industry as it provides managed care-type discounts to uninsured patients and ensures they receive treatment, regardless of their ability to pay. Mr. Fetter has also served as the chairman and CEO of Broadlane, a leading provider of cost management services to both investor-owned and non-profit hospitals, and currently serves on the board of the Federation of American Hospitals.

5. Alyson Giles — Alyson Giles is president and CEO of CMC Healthcare System and Catholic Medical Center, Manchester, N.H. She has been president and CEO of CMC Healthcare System since 2002 and president and CEO of Catholic Medical Center since 1999. She also serves as the 2008-2009 immediate past chairman of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Before her current position, Ms. Giles served as executive vice president and COO of Optima Healthcare; president and CEO of New London Hospital; and president and CEO of Lake Shore Hospital in Manchester, N.H.

6. Larry Goodman — Dr. Larry Goodman is the president and CEO of the Rush University Medical Center. He also serves as president of Rush University and is a principal officer of the Rush board of trustees. He is known as an exceptional leader and has developed the system tremendously over the last several years. He has also published in prestigious publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Journal of Infectious Diseases. His research has focused on infectious diseases, particularly gastrointestinal infections in HIV-positive patients. He is also known for promoting innovation in medical education.

7. Brett Gosney — Brett Gosney is one of the few people on the list that operates a physician-owned hospital. He is the founder and CEO of the first physician-owned hospital in Colorado, the Animas Surgical Hospital. He is the vice president and president elect of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA). He helped lead the efforts to develop the hospital and fought through a wide range of local and state battles and handled a number of efforts to help make the hospital a terrific contributor to healthcare services in the Durango community.

8. Jeff Hillebrand — Jeff Hillebrand is the extraordinary COO of the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) System. Mr. Hillebrand has guided ENH through various and different challenges to become and remain one of the leading hospitals and health systems in Illinois. He previously served as executive vice president, president of ENH Medical Group, senior vice president, and president, of Glenbrook Hospital. He is a fellow of, and has served as a regent in, the American College of Healthcare Executives, and is a member of the Society of Hospital Planning of the American Hospital Association, Leadership Greater Chicago and the Young Presidents Organization.

9. Chris Karam — Chris Karam is a regional leader in CHRISTUS Health, one of the top 10 Catholic health systems in the United States. Mr.Karam serves as president and CEO of the CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System in Texarkana, Texas, one of the most dynamic regions in the CHRISTUS Health system. He serves on the board of trustees of the Texas Hospital Association and is an officer for the Ark-La-Tex Health Network, which includes approximately 325 physicians and 20 facilities with common goals.

10. Paul Levy — Paul Levy has served as the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, since 2002. He is the executive dean of administration at Harvard Medical School and previously was an adjunct professor of environmental policy at MIT. He also publishes a blog called "Running a Hospital"in which he shares his thoughts about healthcare.

11. Ed Murphy — Dr. Ed Murphy is the CEO of the Carilion Health System. He is a proactive leader who has helped to transform Carilion System from a traditional not-for-profit model into an integrated physician-driven delivery system. Before joining Carilion Health System and beginning in 1994, he was president and CEO of Seton Health System in Troy, NY. He is also on the board of managers for The Egg Factory, which creates and develops innovations with an emphasis in the space of optics and ophthalmics. He is someone to continue to watch over the next several years.

12. Don Nestor — Don Nestor has served as the senior vice president of finance for the Aurora Healthcare System for as long one can remember. He is responsible for the management of all of Aurora's operations with the exception of those located in the Milwaukee area. He is an unusually gifted leader with a long history of driving the growth of the Aurora System.

13. Mark Newton— Mark Newton is the CEO of the Swedish Covenant Health System in Chicago. Mr. Newton took a leadership of the system approximately three years ago after he completed serving as the president of Highland Park Hospital. During these three years, he has carved out a position for Swedish Covenant as one of the leading systems in the Chicago area and has helped develop and grow the system in a challenging area. Mark also serves on the boards of the Illinois Hospital Association and the Chicago Hospital Risk Pooling Program, and is a member of the advisory board at North Park University School of Business in Chicago.

14. Keith Pitts — Keith Pitts has served as vice chairman of Nashville-based Vanguard Health Systems since 1999 and serves as the chair of the board of the Federation of American Hospitals. Prior to joining Vanguard, Mr. Pitts was chairman and CEO of Mariner Post-Acute Network and its predecessor, Paragon Health Network. He has also served as OrNda HealthCorp's executive vice president and CFO, and has spent more than 15 years as a consultant to healthcare organizations, most recently as a partner in Ernst & Young's healthcare consulting practice.

15. Ron Reed— Ron Reed is the CEO of Mercy Hospital in Iowa City. He helped put together a jointventure ASC between his hospital and local physicians and has been instrumental in ensuring corporate support while at the same time preserving and cultivating the physician led entrepreneurial spirit of the project. Mr. Reed is on the board of directors for the Iowa Healthcare Collaborative and has been named one of the most influential business leaders in the Iowa City area by a local business publication.

16. John Rex-Waller—John Rex-Waller is the chairman, president and CEO of National Surgical Hospitals, which partners with local physicians to develop freestanding surgical facilities. He has also served as the CFO of Hawk Medical Supply, a provider of disposable medical supplies to physicians and previously he was the CFO and a cofounder of National Surgery Centers which was one the largest independent owner and operator of surgery centers in the country. He has also worked as an investment banker.

17. Michael Sachs — Michael Sachs is the founder of Sg2, a premier provider of data and information to hospital and health system leaders. It generally works with some of the most prestigious health systems in the country. Before founding Sg2, Michael was the chairman of Sachs Group, which provided healthcare planning and marketing data to more than 1,000 institutions in the United States. Michael is a revolutionary thinker and implementer of ideas and a tremendous provider of resources to hospitals and health systems.

18. Molly Sandvig, JD — Molly Sandvig, JD is the executive director of PHA. She has done an outstanding job for physician-owned hospitals and her leadership on behalf of them has been instrumental in the ongoing debate about the rights for physicians to develop and hold ownership stakes in physician-owned hospitals. She also serves as the president of the South Dakota Association of Specialty Care Providers, representing specialty hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers in South Dakota. She is currently serving a second term as a governor appointee to the South Dakota Healthcare Commission. Ms. Sandvig is also a co-chair of the governor-appointed subcommittee on Universal Healthcare Access in South Dakota.

19. Nancy Schlichting — Nancy Schlichting is president and CEO of the Henry Ford Health System. She previously held the positions of executive vice president and COO for the system and was responsible for its hospitals, community care services, hospital joint ventures, physician practice development and integrated support services. She has also served as the president and CEO of Henry Ford Hospital and was responsible for the operation of the Detroit campus. Before joining Henry Ford Health System in 1998, she was executive vice president and chief operating officer of Summa Health System in Akron, Ohio. She has also served as president of the Eastern Region of Catholic Health Initiatives, president and CEO of Riverside Methodist Hospitals and executive vice president and COO of Akron City Hospital.

20. Wayne Smith — Wayne Smith is the CEO of Community Health Systems (CHS). CHS is the largest for-profit publicly traded health system in the country. Since his arrival in 1997, CHS has grown from $742 million in net revenue to more than $4 billion in net revenue. He has done a remarkable job of guiding the company forward in changing times. He also completed the large merger of the Triad System and is doing a terrific job from what we can tell of integrating the two systems together. He has become one of the foremost leaders of hospital systems in the country.

21. Paul Summerside — Dr. Paul Summerside is the chairman of the board of one of the most successful hospitals in Wisconsin, the Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay. He has been a dynamic leader on behalf of this organization. Aurora BayCare Medical Center is owned in large part by the Aurora Healthcare System. Dr. Summerside is a dynamic and experienced leader. He also serves as the chief medical officer for BayCare Clinic. In this role, he is responsible for all physician relations, recruiting, quality assurance and physician contracting.He is also a residency-trained and board-certified physician in emergency medicine.

22. John Thomas — John Thomas is president and chief development officer of Cirrus Health. Headquartered in Dallas, Cirrus develops and manages specialty surgical hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers. Before joining Cirrus Health, Mr. Thomas served as senior vice president and general counsel for Baylor Health Care System. John has also served as general counsel/ secretary with the Unity Health System, a division of Sisters of Mercy Health System in St. Louis, and as president of wholly-owned captive insurance companies Church University Insurance Company and Health Care Insurance Company of Texas.

23. John Toussaint — Dr. John Toussaint is the former president and CEO of ThedaCare in Appleton, Wis. He recently took the lead on the ThedaCare Center for Creating Value in Healthcare, a new ThedaCare-sponsored effort to promote value-based purchasing. His tenure as president and CEO of ThedaCare was marked by impressive growth as well as growing worldwide notoriety for ThedaCare's success in applying lean manufacturing principles and the Toyota Production System to the delivery of patient care; the process and tools are called the "ThedaCare Improvement System."He was the first chairman of, the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality and he founded the Wisconsin Health Information Organization.

24. Daniel Wolterman — Daniel Wolterman has served as the CEO of the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston since 2002. He has more than 25 years experience in various executive positions in the healthcare industry and served as the chairman of the Texas Hospital Association. Mr. Wolterman has taken a high-profile role as an advocate for reducing the number of uninsured Texans. His leadership and advocacy have raised the profile of the uninsured issue and helped build momentum at the state and national levels for meaningful action. In 2007, he received the Partnership for Action Grassroots Champion Award from the American Hospital Association.

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