Broward Health CEO finalists’ past raise questions

Two finalists for the job of chief executive officer of Broward Health left their previous jobs under unexplained circumstances. Of the rest, most are between jobs.

The Broward Health board this week chose six candidates to interview for the CEO job, a position held by a series of interim leaders since the suicide 21 months ago of Dr. Nabil El Sanadi, the last one to hold the job on a permanent basis.

The six finalists come from hospital systems around the United States, most of them much smaller than the one they aspire to lead.

Barbara Martin’s resume says she served as CEO of Vista Health System, a two-hospital, 410-bed system in Waukegan, Ill., “from 2003-Present.” But press accounts say she resigned last May, and neither she nor the hospital system would say why.

Becker’s Hospital Review and the Daily Herald newspaper both said she left her job “suddenly,” but Martin disputed this in a brief email to the Sun Sentinel. “I did not leave suddenly. I resigned.” She did not respond to an email asking why she left.

A registered nurse, she worked her way up for staff nurse to various supervisory positions to leadership roles in various hospital systems.

Michael Young had been CEO of Pinnacle Health System, a five-hospital system in Harrisburg, Pa. “Questions remain after hospital CEO quits,” said the March 5, 2017 headline of the Harrisburg Patriot News article reporting his sudden departure, which took place the same day it was announced. A hospital spokesman told the paper that Young quit “to seek an alternative ca-

reer path.”

Unexplained departures are not unusual in the hospital field and don’t necessarily reflect badly on the employee involved, with employees and employers often constrained from making public statements by non-disparagement agreements.

But Rocky Rodriguez, chairman of the Broward Health board, said he was surprised to hear that some of the candidates had departed their previous jobs under unexplained circumstances.

“This is new to me, what you’re telling me,” he said. “I really wish I had an answer.”

He said the candidates had been vetted by Broward Health’s Georgia search firm, which went through about 300 resumes, although he didn’t know the extent of the background checks.

“Mainly, we wanted to be sure we didn’t have a convicted felon,” he said.

Among the other candidates are Steve Altmiller, former CEO of Good Shepherd Health System of Longview, Texas, who resigned as part of the system’s merger; Joseph Gilene, who was fired last July as president of Kentucky OneHealth’s Jewish Hospital as the company prepared to sell it; Robert Minkin, former CEO of O’Connor & St. Louise Regional Hospitals, a 467-bed system in San Jose, Calif.; and Jessie L. Tucker III, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, a 610-bed academic medical center in New Brunswick, N.J.

Broward Health’s difficulty in attracting candidates from institutions of comparable size may reflect the diminished appeal of a job leading an organization that’s still struggling to overcome severe legal and financial problems. A grand jury is investigating, there are unresolved federal and state inquiries and the system’s bond rating has fallen.

But Rodriguez said there were high-quality candidates in the group and that high turnover is not unusual among the leaders of large hospitals.

“In this business, you come, you go,” he said.

Broward Health, legally known as the North Broward Hospital District, operates five hospitals and various outpatient center that serve the northern two-thirds of Broward County.