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New board takes shape to lead OSU health system

Posted on | September 23, 2009 | 189 views |

Battelle’s CEO will chair the 22-member panel, which also includes reps from all five OSU hospitals

As part of its institution-wide alignment initiative, Ohio State has created a new governance structure for the Medical Center and formed a new board to guide and oversee its health system.

Creation of the new board, which comprises 22 members —­ 13 with voting privileges — was approved earlier this year by the OSU Board of Trustees.

Jeffrey Wadsworth, president and chief executive officer of Battelle, will chair the board.

The new board enhances strategic alignment between the Medical Center’s five individual hospital boards and reports to The Ohio State University Board of Trustees through its medical affairs committee.

The five individual hospital boards, which include the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, Ross Heart Hospital, University Hospital, University Hospital East and OSU Harding Hospital, report to the new Medical Center board and continue to be dedicated to the unique mission each program serves.

The new Medical Center board’s voting membership is predominantly public members with broad expertise in business and health care. The university president appoints six members and the remaining public members are the chairs of the five hospital boards. In addition, the president of the university and the senior vice president for Health Sciences are voting members.

Several other Ohio State staff, in addition to the chair of the medical affairs committee of the Board of Trustees, serve as non-voting members. The chair of the board will be added as a non-voting member to the medical affairs committee.

Medical Center board

Alan Brass was appointed as a member of the OSU board of trustees in 2006 and chairs the Medical Affairs Committee. His career spans four decades in healthcare and has predominantly been associated with large multi-hospital systems and with major academic centers. Brass is chief executive officer for ProMedica Health System in Toledo.

Yvette McGee Brown chairs the OSU Harding board and is the president of the Center for Child and Family Advocacy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Formerly a domestic relations and juvenile court judge in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, she was the first African-American and the second woman to be elected to this court. She serves on several community and professional boards.

Jay Gerlach Jr. is chair of the Ross Heart Hospital board. He is chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer of Lancaster Colony Corporation. Gerlach joined the Lancaster Colony companies in April of 1976.

Liza Kessler is partner-in-charge of the Columbus office of the Jones Day law firm. She is a member of the Ohio State Bar Association and a Fellow of the Columbus Bar Foundation. She is actively involved in the community including serving on nonprofit boards.

Cheryl Krueger was the founder, president and CEO of Cheryl & Co., a multi-million dollar gourmet food and gift corporation, which she sold in 2005. She had served as president since the company’s incorporation in 1981 through March 2009. She recently founded KRUEGER+CO. Consulting, Inc.

David Lauer is chair of the University Hospital board. He retired as president and chief operating officer of Bank One, NA-Columbus. Prior to joining Bank One in 1999, he held the position of managing partner of the Columbus office of Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Robert Massie is chair of The James board and has been president of Columbus-based Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, since 1992. CAS is the global leader in chemical information, offering indispensable research tools to pharmaceutical, chemical and life science companies, as well as universities and patent offices around the world.

Corbett Price is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Kurron Shares of America, one of the nation’s leading health care restructuring and management companies. He has served in a variety of senior management positions with Hospital Corporation of America and was COO at a major affiliated hospital of The Johns Hopkins Medical School.

George Skestos is chair of the University Hospital East board. He founded the Homewood Corporation, serving as Homewood’s president and CEO until his retirement. He has served as a member or director for central Ohio organizations such as the Huntington National Bank, Midland Life Insurance Company and the Association for the Developmentally Disabled.

Jeffrey Wadsworth is president and chief executive officer of Battelle. He previously worked at Stanford University, Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before being named the director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2003. He went on to lead Battelle’s Global Laboratory Operations business, where he oversaw the international nonprofit science and technology enterprise’s management, which now includes eight laboratories.

Abigail Wexner, a lawyer and community leader, is chair of the boards of directors of Nationwide Children’s Hospital Inc. and Nationwide Children’s Hospital; founder and chair of the boards of the Columbus Coalition Against Family Violence, KidsOhio.org and the Center for Child and Family Advocacy; vice chair of the board of KIPP Journey Academy; and a trustee of The Wexner Center Foundation and the US Equestrian Team Foundation.

Also on the board as voting members are university President Gordon Gee and Steven Gabbe, senior vice president of health sciences.

Completing the board are Michael Caligiuri, CEO of the James; Christopher Ellison, board chair of OSU Physicians; William Farrar, director of medical affairs for The James; Peter Geier, CEO of the OSU Health System; Hagop Mekhjian, chief medical officer for the Medical Center; Mary Nash, chief nursing executive for the Medical Center; Chip Souba, dean of the college of medicine; and John Stone, the Medical Center’s chief financial officer.

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