CEOs and Board Members Named to Lead Hospitals at Stanford University Medical Center in Post-Merger Era.

Business Editors and Health/Medical Writers

STANFORD, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--April 6, 2000

With the merger of UCSF Stanford Health Care now a chapter in history, two veteran Stanford University Medical Center administrators -- Malinda Mitchell and Christopher Dawes -- will formally take the reins as chief executive officers at Stanford and Lucile Packard Children's hospitals, respectively, it was announced this week by Eugene Bauer, M.D., vice president for the Medical Center and dean of Stanford University School of Medicine.

University President Gerhard Casper this week also named the members of the two new boards that will govern Stanford and Packard hospitals.

Mitchell and Dawes have a combined 42-year history at the Medical Center and have served admirably as the chief stewards for their respective institutions, Bauer said.

"They are both spectacular managers," he said. "They understand the subtleties of what it takes to bring this organization back into the Stanford fold."

Mitchell joined Stanford in 1975 as a clinical nursing coordinator and gradually rose through the ranks to become chief operating officer of Stanford Hospital in 1989. During the two-year merger of UCSF Stanford Health Care, she served as senior vice president and chief operating officer for the south campus.

Dawes served as unit manager and assistant director of nursing in the late 1970s and returned in 1987 to activate the Hospital Modernization Project. He was named executive vice president and chief operating officer at Packard in 1997 and served during the merger as senior vice president and chief operating officer for Lucile Packard Children's Hospitals at Stanford and UCSF.

Both will assume their new posts immediately, now that the final dissolution papers have been filed by Stanford and UCSF. The two medical centers already have separated their finances and stopped sharing profits and losses as of March 1. And the formal return of assets occurred on April 1.

"I believe there is a great deal of interest and excitement in moving forward, setting our course for the future and regaining our focus," Mitchell said.

She said she already has turned her attention to three key areas: growing the hospital's patient base, improving customer service and maintaining a cost-effective approach to management.

She said the two hospitals will benefit from a system of widely shared services, including finance, information technology, contracting, purchasing and materials, human resources and support services such as housekeeping and dietary.

Dawes agreed. "I believe that the concept of sharing services is very important for our future, both from a cost perspective but also from a customer service perspective," he said.

Dawes said his priorities now for Packard are to continue the growth and development of leading edge services for patients while continuing to ensure that the focus is on the child, family and pregnant woman. He said the hospital also will have to continue to manage its expenses in a thoughtful way.

"We have grown substantially over the last several years, adding more than 30 faculty members, almost doubling our inpatient activity and tripling our outpatient activity. So I'm immensely proud of the organization, and I think we have achieved a lot and have a lot to achieve in the future," Dawes said.

The new boards of Stanford and Packard hospitals will have 16 and 13 members, respectively, with 10 individuals sitting on both panels. An additional six members will be exclusive to Stanford's board, while Packard will have an additional three members who will serve on its board alone.

In the years before the merger, the two boards were entirely separate and independent. But with many services now shared between the two hospitals, there is expected to be considerable collaboration at the board level. Board members will meet on a quarterly basis, with the first meeting expected to be held at the end of April.

Denise O'Leary, a University trustee, will chair Stanford's board, while John Lillie, president of Sequoia Associates in Menlo Park, Calif., will serve as the chair of Packard's board.

O'Leary, Lillie, Bauer, Mitchell and Dawes will sit on both boards. In addition, the following individuals will serve on both boards: Peter Gregory, M.D., chief medical officer of Adult Services; Kenneth Cox, M.D., chief medical officer of Children's Services; Susan Orr, a University trustee and president of the Technology Resource Assistance Center in Palo Alto, Calif.; Isaac Stein, M.D., a University trustee and former chair of the board of UCSF Stanford Health Care; and the new dean of the School of Medicine, who has yet to be named.

The following people will also serve on Stanford's board: Peter Bing, M.D., formerly a member of the board of Stanford Health Services (SHS); Woodrow Myers, M.D., a former Stanford trustee; John Scully, managing director of SPO Partners and a former member of the board of SHS; Robert Halperin, past vice chair of Raychem Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif.; Marianne Byerwalter, chief financial officer for Stanford University; and Richard Hoppe, M.D., Stanford professor of radiation oncology.

The following additional individuals will serve on Packard's board: Anne Bass, of Ft. Worth, Texas; Harvey Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of pediatrics; and Philip Lee, M.D., consulting professor of human biology at Stanford and a professor emeritus with the Institute of Health Policy Studies at UCSF.