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Keck CFO to Join Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego

Analysis  |  By Jack O'Brien  
   February 25, 2020

James Uli will replace Kathleen Cain, who is retiring after a lengthy career in healthcare finance.

Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego announced James Uli, MHA as its next chief financial officer (CFO) Monday afternoon, replacing longtime CFO Kathleen Cain.

Uli, who has served as CFO of Keck Medicine of University of Southern California since 2018, will take on his new role at the end of the month.

Uli previously served as CFO of Providence Saint John's Health Center and the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica and held leadership positions at Loma Linda (CA) University Medical Center.

Related: How Hospital CFOs Will Invest This Year

"I am thrilled to bring James onto the Rady Children’s executive team," Patrick A. Frias, MD, chief executive officer of Rady Children's, said in a statement. "He has a strong and proven history of effective leadership and strategic thinking in the health care industry that will serve our organization, staff and patients well. In addition, his experience working in the Southern California market, not to mention living there with a family of his own, will be an asset as we continue to expand our health system and serve the needs of more families in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial Counties."

Shortly after joining Keck, Uli spoke with HealthLeaders about the importance of implementing effective cost containment strategies.

"Cost management, cost containment, and ensuring value-based care from the health system are some things we have to look at and continually reevaluate ourselves on what we're doing and if we can do it better," Uli said. 

Related: Keck CFO on New Care Strategies: 'We're Going to Have to Break Those Chains'

Cain, who served as CFO at Rady Children's for four years, attended the HealthLeaders Winter CFO Exchange earlier this month, where she spoke about why provider organizations need to maximize opportunities around innovation.

"Innovation is how you grow in the pediatric world, such as the ability to conduct rapid whole genome sequencing," Cain said.

Related: Three Notes From the Winter CFO Exchange

Jack O'Brien is the Content Team Lead and Finance Editor at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.


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