Health systems have fewer hospital CEOs in 2026 than they did a year ago, and the shift appears to be intentional.
A comparison of Becker’s trackers in 2025 and 2026 of health system C-suite restructuring shows fewer hospitals have their own dedicated CEO than they did a year ago. The systems making that choice are not filling the seats they eliminate, but are instead expanding an existing hospital, market or regional CEO’s oversight.
In October, Peggy Loughery, MSN, RN, senior vice president of executive search at Kirby Bates Associates, told Becker’s health systems are increasingly moving away from individual hospital CEO roles in favor of regional leadership models, typically a regional CEO paired with a chief nursing officer and chief medical officer overseeing multiple hospitals.
“Organizations are increasingly adopting this structure to drive standardization and operational efficiency across their systems,” Ms. Loughery said.
The latest example arrived Aug. 17, when Hollywood, Fla.-based Memorial Healthcare System confirmed that Caitlin Stella is no longer CEO of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Oversight of the hospital was folded into Paul Gaden’s existing role as CEO of the Memorial Regional Hospital campus. Folded into two years of Becker’s reporting, including San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare’s shift from five hospital-based CEOs to two market CEOs and Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Health’s move to a four-market structure, it is another data point in a pattern that has been building since at least 2024.
The tracker comparison shows how much momentum that pattern has accumulated in a single year. Isolating just the entries in each tracker that touch a hospital CEO or president title, 2025 logged 12 such moves. In 2026’s tracker, six of six CEO- and president-specific entries are consolidations or eliminations. Only one system has created a new CEO role in 2026, according to Becker’s reporting: Megan Pfarr was named the inaugural CEO of Hospital Sisters Health System Rehabilitation Hospital, slated to open in 2026 in Green Bay, Wis.
The mechanism behind nearly every example is the same. A CEO or president retires or departs, and the system treats the vacancy as an opportunity to expand oversight rather than a hiring need. New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health’s Derek Anderson picked up Putnam Hospital in Carmel, N.Y., in July after President Mark Hirko, MD, retired, while continuing to serve as president of Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Peoria, Ill.-based OSF HealthCare’s Derrick Frazier added a second hospital after President Eunmee Shim, MSN, departed in May. Marquette, Mich.-based UP Health System followed the same script in 2025, expanding Tonya Darner’s role as CEO of UP Health System-Marquette to include UP Health System-Bell in Ishpeming, Mich., after Bell’s CEO retired.
This is happening as hospital CEO turnover accelerates. Hospital CEO appointments in 2026 hit 91% of 2025’s full-year total in just seven months, and first quarter exits rose 32% year over year, according to Becker’s turnover tracking, giving systems more openings to consolidate rather than replace.
Sharp HealthCare’s experience helps explain why systems are choosing that path. Scott Evans, PharmD, senior vice president, chief strategy officer and market CEO, previously told Becker’s the consolidated structure “enables the CEOs to better tailor operations to their unique patient populations.” Sentara’s Eric Conely, executive vice president and president of acute and post-acute care, made a similar case in a May 2025 news release, saying the system’s market structure allows leaders to “tailor our approach and operational strategies based on the unique needs of each community, while still benefiting from the consistency and coordination of market-based leadership.”
The shift is not universal, however. Charleston, W.Va.-based Vandalia Health eliminated its regional CEO structure in March but replaced it with two new divisional executive vice president roles. In addition, Bellaire, Texas-based Harris Health created three new CEO positions in 2025, even as other systems were consolidating.
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