This roundup is published monthly. It is meant to highlight some of healthcare’s recent hiring news and is not intended to be comprehensive. If you have news about an executive appointment, resignation or layoff that you would like to share for this roundup, please reach out to [email protected].
Hires
CVS Health welcomed Jeffrey Fernandez as senior vice president of Medicare at Aetna. He is joining the organization from Ochsner Health, where he served as senior vice president of population health and CEO of Ochsner Health Plan. Before Ochsner, he spent 16 years at Humana, serving most recently as senior vice president of its Medicare West segment.
Digital health startup Drive Health hired James Stringham as chief strategy officer. He is coming to the organization from Banner Health Plans, where he served as CEO. Before that, he spent more than a decade in various leadership roles at Magellan Health.
HCA Healthcare appointed Yauheni “Owen” Solad as system vice president of clinical artificial intelligence. Previously, he served as vice president of innovation at UC Davis Health.
Healthcare software company symplr welcomed Theresa Meadows as its new CIO in residence. She joins the company from Cook Children’s Health Care System in Texas, where she serves as CIO.
Women’s telehealth company Wisp hired Jennifer Peña as chief medical officer. In the past, served as medical director for Oscar Health and chief medical officer for Nurx, K Health and Vault Health.
Promotions
Cone Health appointed Preston Hammock to the newly created role of senior vice president of business and partnership development. He joined the health system in 2013 when Cone acquired Alamance Regional Medical Center — he was serving as its president at the time.
Cardiac remote monitoring company PaceMate named JR Finkelmeier as its new CEO. He joined PaceMate last year as its chief commercial officer. Before that, he spent more than a decade at medical device company BioTelemetry, which was acquired by Philips in 2021.
Tenet Healthcare promoted Lisa Foo to the COO role. She joined the health system in 2019 as its chief commercial and strategy officer. In the past, she held various leadership positions at McKinsey & Company.
The University of Miami Health System named Dipen Parekh as its new CEO. He first began working at the health system in 2012 as chair of the urology department.
Exits
Ascension CEO Joseph Impicciche announced that he will retire at the end of the year. He joined the health system more than 20 years ago as senior vice president of legal services and general counsel. Ascension’s current president, Eduardo Conrado, will step into the CEO role on January 1.
CommonSpirit Health CFO Daniel Morissette will retire on October 31, and the health system has begun a search for his successor. He has served as CommonSpirit’s CFO since 2019, when Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and Dignity Health merged to create the organization. He joined Dignity in 2016 as CFO.
Lovelace Health System CEO Troy Greer resigned from his position after two years in the role and at the health system. Michael Kueker, previously the CEO of Lovelace Medical Group, has assumed the role of interim CEO. Notably, this is the Lovelace’s fourth announcement of a CEO change in just three years.
Optum Health CEO Amar Desai left his role after two years, having now become president of Optum’s integrated care unit, as well as vice chair of Optum Health. Optum CEO Patrick Conway has taken over as the leader of Optum Health. Prior to Optum Health, Desai was president of healthcare delivery at CVS Health.
Layoffs
Prime Healthcare is laying off more than 100 roles across the eight Illinois hospitals that it acquired from Ascension earlier this year. The health system said these positions are being eliminated because they are duplicative or incongruent with Prime’s care model.
Providence cut about 600 jobs as part of a restructuring brought on by declining reimbursement rates and rising expenses.These layoffs, which impact less than 1% of the health system’s overall workforce, are mainly in nonclinical, administrative departments.
UC San Diego Health laid off about 230 employees as a result of financial challenges. The job cuts, which affected about 1.5% of the health system’s total workforce, included some clinical positions.
Financial hardships drove UCSF Health to eliminate 200 positions, which is about 1% of the health system’s workforce. About a quarter of the employees who were laid off worked part time, and about half of the impacted full-time employees worked in management roles.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center cut about 650 employees, which is less than 2% of the health system’s workforce. Impacted employees are mainly in research, administrative and other support roles. Vanderbilt said the layoffs are due mainly to medical research funding cuts and expected reductions in Medicaid payments.
Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is laying off 116 workers in the virtual care services division in an effort to become more financially stable.