‘Only reason I’m here is to better this organization’
Broward Health’s new CEO says he’s ready for challenges
Broward Health’s newly appointed president and CEO, Gino Santorio, says he’s eager to lead the hospital system and tackle its challenges.
Chaos has beleaguered the massive hospital district, which has had four chief executives in two years, saw five top leaders indicted and endured a running series of controversies and investigations, including the suicide of a CEO, a procession of interim leaders, failed executive searches and a tarnished national brand.
Santorio acknowledged Thursday that the district has been in a “state of turmoil,” but he praises the “effective and loyal and high-quality employees.”
In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, he said his goal “is to be honest and forthright and the only reason I’m here is to better this organization and help the great people we have succeed.”
The North Broward Hospital District Board of Commissioners unanimously named Santorio to
his leadership post Wednesday. He takes over immediately, overseeing a system that operates five hospitals and various outpatient facilities. It serves the northern two-thirds of Broward County and is partially supported by property taxes.
Santorio, 36, takes the reins of a system that continues to operate under close federal oversight, under an agreement made to settle charges of operating an illegal payment system for physicians.
For Broward Health to combat its “share of community-perception” issues, it’ll require listening to the physicians and the community, and then taking action on the feedback, he said. The district already has made inroads on transparency issues by broadcasting board meetings, he said.
“I think transparency is the best medicine,” he said.
The hospital district was rocked by turnover and other developments in recent years. Among them:
Beverly Capasso, the prior chief executive officer of Broward Health, abruptly resigned in October, less than a year after being hired.
The chief lawyer for Broward Health, general counsel Lynn Barrett, was fired in October by the hospital system’s board, after a parade of speakers at a meeting accused her of squandering the system’s money, harming patient care and creating a toxic work environment.
The outside CPA on Broward Health’s audit committee, Joel Mutnick, was terminated last year, and he said he regarded it as an attempt by the hospital system to squelch independent scrutiny of its operations.
Top leaders of Broward Health were indicted last year on charges of violating Florida’s public meetings law.
A previous CEO, Dr. Nabil El Sanadi, died by suicide in early 2016.
Broward Health was the target of probes by the FBI and the Florida Chief Inspector General. It was fined $70 million by federal authorities over illegal payments to doctors.
Santorio said he’s ready to move on from the past.
“As far as I’m concerned, I do listen to the history of problems, it’s important not to repeat,” he said.
He said his message is: “I’m new, I know you’ve heard it before, [but we’ll] start to build the confidence.”
He is insistent that good times are ahead: Broward Health “is now in the golden era,” with the next two or three years providing a “chance to grow and expand,” he said.
Santorio joined Broward Health in September 2017 as executive vice president and chief operating officer, and oversaw nearly $1.2 billion in operating revenue. He is credited with helping the system save more than $31 million in contract negotiations, operational improvements and a reduction in labor costs, according to a news release from the hospital.
Before joining Broward Health, Santorio served as senior vice president and chief executive officer for Jackson North Medical Center.
He arrived at Jackson in 2011 when it had “six days of cash on hand, in the paper three times a day, [a] projected $400 million loss [and we turned it] into a profit in less than eight months.”
Also this week, Broward Health received its first positive credit rating news in almost three years when Moody’s changed the district’s outlook from “negative” to “stable.”
The rating agency stopped short of upgrading the credit rating, which would have reduced the health district’s cost of borrowing money. The outlook said expectations are that revenues will grow at a modest pace and that the district will continue to comply with an oversight agreement with the federal government, called a corporate integrity agreement.
The rating covers about $317 million of outstanding debt from 2017.
While the rating’s outlook was a positive change for the health district, the current rating still points to the struggles the district faces going forward.
Moody’s outlook said the rating is constrained by the health district’s “still thin cash-flow,” the age of its buildings, its heavy reliance on Medicaid patients, its “unusual degree” of senior management turnover and the “extraordinary level of external scrutiny” it is receiving as a result of the federal oversight agreement.
The stable outlook means the hospital district is no longer facing immediate pressures that could lead to a further drop in its credit rating. “We don’t expect the rating to change for the next 24 months,” said Moody’s spokesman David Jacobson.