Broward Health interviewing possible CEO replacements

Move is first by hospital system since its leader killed himself in January 2016

Interviews for the top job at Broward Health began Monday, nearly two years to the day after the suicide of the public hospital system’s last chief executive officer.

The system’s board, which has two members under indictment, including the chairman, spent about an hour each with two of the four finalists: Barbara Martin, former CEO of Vista Health System, of Waukegan, Ill., and Michael Young, former CEO of Pinnacle Health System, of Harrisburg, Pa.

“I think it’s high time that we move forward and get ourselves a permanent CEO,” board chairman Rocky Rodriguez said as the meeting opened at Broward Health’s corporate headquarters in northern Fort Lauderdale.

Hiring a permanent CEO is a key task for a board struggling to bring order to a system that has been roiled for years by investigations and controversy. Broward Health’s previous CEO, Dr. Nabil El Sanadi, shot himself Jan. 23, 2016, and the taxpayersupported, five-hospital system has gone through a series of interim leaders ever since.

Board members asked both candidates about the financial performance of their previous hospital systems, how they would improve relations with the black community and the press and what their first moves would be at Broward Health.

In response to a question from board member Steven Wellins, Martin described her biggest accomplishment as turning around Vista Health System, which “was very broken when I came, in all the diverse areas of finances, quality, community support, elected official support.”

Through her efforts, she said, she and her colleagues transformed it into a larger and growing institution with “strong financial outcomes” that could compete effectively with bigger hospital systems. “That clearly is my biggest accomplishment,” she said.

Young also touted his skills as a turnaround specialist, having led the fivehospital Pinnacle system from 2011 to 2017, recruiting new executives and restoring the health of an organization that had experienced worsening finances and patient volumes. But he said his best work was as a mentor.

“I think the best thing I’ve done in my community is the number of CEOs, COOs and CFOs that have developed by working with me that are around the country who have done extraordinarily well where they are,” he said.

Not discussed at the meeting were the criminal charges hanging over the leadership of Broward Health. Five current or former officials of Broward Health, which is legally known as the North Broward Hospital District, face charges for alleged violations of the state open-meetings law for their handling of the firing of one of the interim CEOs, Pauline Grant.

Named in an indictment unsealed last month are Rodriguez, board member Christopher Ure, interim CEO and former board member Beverly Capasso, former board member Linda Robison and general counsel Lynn Barrett.

Interviews will wrap up today, when the board speaks with the last two candidates, Joseph Gilene, former market president for the downtown Louisville campus of Catholic Health Initiative/Kentucky Health, and Robert Minkin, former CEO of O’Connor & St. Louise Regional Hospitals in San Jose, Calif.

Rodriguez said he hoped to begin discussions to narrow the field after the interviews today.