Ochsner CEO Patrick Quinlan to step down, head new venture

Dr. Patrick Quinlan will step down Sept. 1 as chief executive officer of Ochsner Health System, handing control of the region's largest healthcare provider to his longtime second-in-command, Warner Thomas. Now the president and chief operating officer, Thomas will become the first non-physician leader for the not-for-profit health system that began in 1941 as a clinical partnership of Alton Ochsner and four other New Orleans doctors. Quinlan, who has led Ochsner since 2001, three years after he joined the organization as chief medical officer, will remain in the system as a governing board member and as director of a new enterprise: the Ochsner Center for Wellness and Health Policy.