Baylor St. Luke’s names new president
Houston native will leave San Antonio post to become president of CHI St. Luke’s Health-Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
Gay Nord, a veteran health care leader, will return to her hometown of Houston to take the reins as president of CHI St. Luke’s Health-Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center.
Gay Nord, a veteran Texas health care leader, will return to her hometown of Houston to take the reins as president of CHI St. Luke’s Health-Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, the hospital announced on Monday.
Nord will begin her new position in October. She currently is president and CEO of Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, where she has been at the helm for about five years.
She also has served as CEO at Kingwood Medical Center and chief operating officer at West Houston Medical Center.
The lure of the esteemed Texas Medical Center helped clinch the deal.
“It’s a once-in-a-career opportunity,” Nord said Monday.
She said she was also swayed by the plans to build a 27-acre, state-of-the-art Baylor St. Luke’s medical campus, now under construction. The $1.1 billion McNair medical campus project will ultimately house a 650-bed hospital, a medical office building, ambulatory care complex, research centers and the relocated Texas Heart Institute, within the medical center’s borders.
Nord said health care has always been important in her quest “to make a difference in the lives of others.” It’s also a family tradition. Nord, who was born and raised in Houston, is a thirdgeneration woman to forge a career in health care, following in the path of her mother, a nurse, and grandmother, who worked in medical practice management.
In a 2013 profile in San Antonio Woman, Nord said her mother had urged her to pursue nursing but she soon realized “she wasn’t cut out to be a nurse.” In-
stead she majored in business administration at the University of Houston and earned a graduate degree in health care administration from Texas Woman’s University.
In these turbulent times in health care, Nord sees opportunities, not barriers.
Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals are under pressure to be more efficient and reduce admissions — goals that can seem contrary to longstanding business models for health care institutions. They also appear in contrast to the multimilliondollar expansion projects underway within the Catholic Health Initiatives system.
Nord said the concepts do not negate each other. While her hospital will “focus on prevention,” which is a cornerstone of the health care law, it will also continue to emphasize traditional clinical care.
“I do not see that going away,” she said, especially in light of the huge numbers of aging baby boomers on the horizon.
The medical field has been a bright spot in Houston’s economy with plentiful jobs in the midst of devastating oil and gas layoffs.
Still, CHI announced a restructuring earlier this month that resulted in the elimination of 230 positions across its system in Texas.
Only about 60 people lost their jobs as the other positions were either already vacant, or workers were reassigned, the company said in a release earlier this month. Most of the jobs affected were in management, administrative or non-clinical, but the company did not specify which facilities were affected.
Nord said she could not comment on any of those changes.
Dr. William Brien, who has been serving as interim president, will resume his role as vice president medical operations and chief clinical officer at Baylor St. Luke’s.