Dr. Varga serves as chief physician executive for Hackensack Meridian Health, overseeing the physician enterprise and the network’s patient safety and quality division across an 18-hospital system with more than 500 patient care locations, 38,000-plus team members and 7,000 physicians. His accountabilities include leading the 2,200-member employed physician enterprise, co-leading the 5,000-physician clinically integrated network, co-leading the care transformation services service lines, and overseeing system quality and patient safety functions including high-reliability initiatives, infection prevention, clinical process improvement, informatics and medical ethics. He is known for bringing disparate constituencies together around transparent, reliable, patient-centered care, with a composed leadership style suited to both crisis and complex change. Over the past year, he was a principal leader in external care-delivery partnerships designed to expand primary care access, including relationships with Amazon One Medical and K-Health, resulting in the launch of a new 24/7 virtual primary care service. He has advanced internal alignment and standardization through efforts such as rechartering the medical council committee, creating centralized credentialing, and convening 12 clinical disciplines to build regionally viable configurations that balance network quality goals and local community needs. His service line impact includes developing an integrated clinical strategic business model and a dyad leadership approach to drive standardized care plan models with accountability and credibility. His crisis leadership during Covid-19 led to the development of protocols and tiered ICU staffing models. He currently serves as an associate professor of medicine at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and holds leadership roles with the Leadership Institute’s physician executive forums.
