Janice Smith joins Woodland Healthcare as vice president and CFO. She will serve as the key financial strategist for both Woodland Memorial Hospital and the Woodland Clinic Medical Group. Prior to joining Woodland Healthcare, Janice was a chief administrative officer at UC Davis Health System, where she also helped develop its primary care network, was a manager in managed care operations, and served as budget director.
Morton Plant Mease Health Care has named Chris Winters the new CFO. In his new position, he will assist senior management with strategic financial planning and budgeting, according to a release. With 17 years of healthcare experience, Winters was previously CFO of the western region of Cleveland Clinic Health System.
The Memorial Hospital CFO Barry Bergman submitted his resignation April 9 and will be leaving his post May 1. Samantha Johnston, TMH service excellence officer and spokesperson, said Bergman left to pursue a career opportunity in Anchorage, AK. Bergman was the hospital's CFO since April 2007. His departure is the second administrative resignation at the hospital in about a month. CCO Bob Lindberg, who joined the hospital in September 2006, resigned in early March and left TMH on April 3. Lindberg also resigned for personal reasons, Johnston said. Kathy Fagan, inpatient services director, has taken his place as interim CCO. The hospital has not yet named an interim CFO. Quorum Health Resources will be tasked with finding Bergman's replacement.
Sally Jeffcoat has been named president and CEO of Saint Alphonsus, a 387-bed regional medical center. Most recently, Jeffcoat served as the executive vice president/COO of Healthcare Operations for Ascension Health in St. Louis. Prior to that, from 2003 to 2007 Jeffcoat was the president and CEO of Carondelet Health Network in Tucson, AZ. He will begin as CEO at Saint Alphonsus on June 1.
HHS has named Henry Claypool director of the HHS Office on Disability. Claypool has 25 years of experience developing and implementing disability policy at the federal, state, and local levels, and he has personal experience with the nation's healthcare system from the perspective of an individual with a disability. Claypool now serves as the policy director at Independence Care System, a managed long-term care provider in New York City. Claypool has advised the federal government on disability policy for several years.
President Obama has named Virginia Technology Secretary Aneesh P. Chopra to be the nation's first chief technology officer. The president announced the choice over the weekend in his weekly radio and Internet address, adding Chopra to a small group of advisers whose aim it is to enhance and modernize the delivery of government services. The president also named Jeffrey Zients, a chief executive and former management consultant, to be his chief performance officer. The position was initially offered to Nancy Killefer, who withdrew after questions were raised about her payment of taxes. Chopra, appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in 2006, had been under consideration for months for a job in the Obama administration, including technology chief at the Department of Health and Human Services.