Wexner Medical Center CEO plans exit
Paz headed to Stony Brook University in NY
Dr. Harold L. Paz will leave his role as CEO of Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center and executive vice president for health affairs on Oct. 3.
After his departure, Paz, 66, will become executive vice president for health sciences at Stony Brook University in New York, Ohio State President Kristina M. Johnson said in a message to the campus community Wednesday.
Paz will leave his leadership post a little more than two years after taking the job at the state public research university in New York. Johnson said Paz has been an “outstanding leader” and thanked him for his time at Ohio State University and the medical center.
“I know you join me in expressing our gratitude for his service as a Buckeye and wishing him well in his new role,” she said in her message to students, staff and faculty members,
Johnson said on Wednesday that the administration will share more information regarding an interim leader soon. Ohio State plans to launch a national search to replace Paz, Johnson said
Paz said he joined Wexner Medical Center because he saw it as an opportunity to change the future of health care, and he didn’t want to waste his decades of experience and knowledge as an administrator in both public and
private enterprises.
Before joining Ohio State in June 2019, Paz was an executive vice president and chief medical officer at Aetna. Previously, Paz also worked as CEO of Penn State University’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, senior vice president for health affairs and dean of the College of Medicine from 2006 to 2014, according to Ohio State.
“I’m passionate about how we transform healthcare to really achieve a goal of improving health and wellbeing and reducing premature death in the most effective ways possible,” Paz said.
Under Paz, the university began construction of a $1.79 billion, 1.9 millionsquare-foot hospital tower.
The new 26-floor, 820-bed inpatient facility is expected to open in 2026 and is being built in the area west of the James Cancer Center and Solove Research Institute. The project was originally announced in 2017.
Paz’s time at Wexner Medical Center was largely spent dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, which began less than a year after he started work there. Just last week Paz, along with the CEOS of Ohiohealth, Mount Carmel and Nationwide Children’s Hospital, called on central Ohioans to get vaccinated and mask up amidst the latest wave of COVID-19.
In August, the Ohio State University Nurses Organization took aim at Paz and other executives at the medical center for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonus pay during the pandemic. The union purchased space on a billboard to highlight Paz’s $788,000 bonus in 2020 and also used the sign to claim that frontline workers received no bonuses.
While not all frontline workers received bonuses, records showed thousands did and the most common amount awarded was $300.
During his time at the university, Paz has listened and been responsive to what’s going on and what his colleagues tell him, said Electra Paskett, director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control in Ohio State’s College of Medicine.
“He speaks about the need to address racism and has put plans in place,” said Paskett, who is also director of the Center for Cancer Health Equity at OSU’S Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital. “It shows he’s very attentive and willing to address change to make the right things happen.”
Paskett was one of 17 colleagues in Ohio State’s department of internal medicine who signed a 2017 letter criticizing the leadership of Dr. Sheldon
Retchin, CEO of the Medical Center before Paz was recruited. Other physicians and professors also complained about Retchin and his leadership team, saying they created “an environment of low morale, distrust and retaliation” and a division between the Medical Center and the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Within weeks of the complaints Retchin had stepped down, followed by Dr. Michael Caligiuri, CEO of the James, and eventually others.
Paz served as a “nice change” from the previous leadership, Paskett said.
“I was quite surprised,” Paskett said about Paz’s decision to leave Ohio State. “I wish him well and thank him for all he has done here leading us especially through COVID-19 pandemic.”
Dispatch freelance reporter Kathy Gray contributed to this story. mfilby@dispatch.com @Maxfilby