Members on the Move: January 2019

American Association for Physician Leadership members share their career news, accolades and other milestones.

BRIAN DAVIDSON, MD, CPE, helped spearhead the acquisition of Rocky Mountain Orthopaedic Associates, the largest orthopedic practice in western Colorado, by SCL Health Medical Group. He says the move ultimately will improve health care, patient satisfaction and lower costs for both organizations.

SCL is a faith-based network of providers and clinics that operates St. Mary’s Medical Center, of which Davidson, an AAPL member since 2010, is president. Davidson says St. Mary’s will benefit from the practice, services and specialties provided by RMOA, and that RMOA will benefit from the stability and considerable resources provided by St. Mary’s. The move will allow its providers to concentrate on patient care, and opportunities to align incentives also could lower costs for patients, he says.

The acquisition also aligns with a trend of physicians moving away from private practice, Davidson says, and toward shared technology, support services and financial considerations for physicians in hospitals and joint employment arrangements.

In other news:

DAVID BAUMGARTNER, MD, chief medical officer at Mercy Health St. Mary’s in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was named interim president until a permanent president is selected. An AAPL member since 1998, Baumgartner’s 46-year career at the hospital includes 30 years in an infectious disease program for HIV patients that he created in 1988 and from which he retired in 2017 to focus on his role as CMO.

MATTHEW A. WEISSMAN, MD, MBA, FAAP, has returned to Mount Sinai Beth Israel as chair of medicine, responsible for the department’s clinical, educational and research activities and overseeing more than 175 faculty and more than 120 medical residents and postdoctoral fellows. An AAPL member since 2002, he maintains an active clinical practice and is involved in the MSBI transformation that includes building a state-of-the-art hospital and the renovation of one of the largest ambulatory practices in New York. He previously was chief medical officer at Community Healthcare Network, one of the largest federally qualified health centers in New York.

DAVID NASH, MD, MBA, joins the strategic advisory council of Innovaccer, a San Francisco, California-based health care data platform company. A member of AAPL since 1985, he is dean of Thomas Jefferson College of Population Health, of which AAPL is an educational partner. He brings to the council considerable knowledge of population health management as well as clinical expertise and experience in health care policy and reform.

STEVEN KASTER, MD, MBA, an association member since 2017, is the new chief medical officer at Menorah Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Hired as CMO of HCA Healthcare’s Dallas/Fort Worth location in 2017, he was transferred to Kansas City to improve physician recruitment and retention, efficiency, patient experience and patient outcomes.

Attention, association members. Were you recently promoted or receive an award? Got a new job? Publish a book? Or achieve some other milestone? Share your news with colleagues through Members on the Move. Let us know by emailing journal@physicianleaders.org.