Acting MetroHealth System CEO Dr. Christine Alexander-Rager has been appointed the CEO for at least the next 15 months. The appointment came at the end of a two-hour board of trustees meeting Tuesday, most of it held in executive session. Alexander-Rager has served as the health system's acting chief executive since late July. The board voted unanimously for Alexander-Rager to be the CEO of the MetroHealth System for the remaining portion of the original contract timeline for former CEO Airica Steed, who was fired August. Alexander-Rager's contract will run through 2025. First, the board voted on a motion to pick MetroHealth's Dr. Nabil Chehade, executive vice president and chief clinical officer for transformation, to be the next CEO. The vote was four yes and four no, with the board chairman Dr. Harry Walker then casting the deciding no vote. Alexander-Rager becomes the health system's third CEO in about two years. Steed replaced CEO Dr. Akram Boutros, who was also fired by MetroHealth's board of directors.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Martin Shkreli, who was once dubbed 'Pharma Bro' after jacking up the price of a lifesaving drug. Shkreli appealed an order to return $64.6 million in profits he and his former company reaped after monopolizing the market for the medication and drastically increasing its price. His lawyers argued that the money went to his company rather than him personally. The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is typical, and there were no noted dissents.
When Ralph de la Torre resigned Tuesday from Steward Health Care, many of the nurses and doctors across the national hospital chain rejoiced and called it the start of a new era. But the new Steward may not look all that different from the old one. Steward's board of directors, in a step experts in corporate governance call highly unusual, eschewed appointing a successor to de la Torre, leaving the teetering health system without even an interim CEO or chairman. Now, Steward is led by that same board — and many of the same people — that seems to have offered little or no resistance as Steward's hospitals were starved of resources and de la Torre got rich on massive dividends.
Alastair Bell, MD, CEO of Boston Medical Center, got up early on Tuesday, the first day of the post-Steward Health Care era in Massachusetts. He drove to Brockton to greet caregivers as they arrived at Good Samaritan Medical Center. In the afternoon, he was back in Boston, welcoming staffers at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center. That day, they became employees of BMC, the state's largest safety net hospital — now by a long shot. Long a healthcare anchor in the heart of Boston, the system has emerged from the Steward ashes with more than twice as many hospital beds and a regional footprint, the most essential player in the state’s rescue of Steward's tottering hospitals. Now comes the hard part: making sure the troubled hospitals it rescued can survive, and serve their patients, in the new alignment.
Hurricane Helene caused damage to the ShorePoint Health Punta Gorda hospital and ER, causing it to remain closed for repairs. However, clinics and outpatient services on the Punta Gorda campus are open, but elevators are not working. "Our priority is keeping safe, quality healthcare available to the community and we will reopen our Punta Gorda campus as soon as possible," said ShorePoint Health CEO Andy Romine.