An outsider, Sean Gregory, is expected to take over the Columbia Network region for PeaceHealth which includes its Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver and St. John’s Medical Center in Longview.
Sean Gregory, who has been president of the Health First Holmes Regional Medical Center in Florida, will assume the role held by Nancy Steiger, who left PeaceHealth after less than two years.
In Florida, Gregory managed the strategy and business development for Health First's 514-bed non-profit tertiary hospital, and oversaw revenue and growth planning, service line growth and development, capital budget, physician relations, and overall planning and strategy.
Earlier, he had been vice president, strategy and business development for Exempla Healthcare — a regional health network with three hospitals, a large multi-specialty physician group, and several sub-acute services in Denver, CO. In that role, he launched new product lines and locations, created multiple service operational enhancements, and achieved the organization's highest operating margin and income in its 13-year history. While at Exempla Healthcare Gregory also developed joint venture partnerships in hospice, long-term care facilities, respiratory care, oncology, as well as home care, surgery centers, and rehabilitation services.
At PeaceHealth, Gregory’s coming into a troubled organization, which has seen the departure of top executives and has been plagued with declining financial performance.
Financial disclosures show that PeaceHealth has paid $22.7 million in “separation benefits” over the past four years, while non-executive workers have said they’re being wrongly fired. Also millions of dollars have been spent on severance agreements, retained searches to fill executive roles, sign on bonuses for new executives and for consultants.
“Many subject matter experts or qualified people are leaving PeaceHealth because they are not taken seriously and feel that PeaceHealth is not taking enough of the needed steps to ensure the security of sensitive data and/or access as advised,” the inside source said. “It is more about who is friends with who and not their expertise, which is how she was able to step into this role to begin with.
“Qualified people are bailing fast. No one wants their name associated to an inevitable breach. It is going to happen because they are not taking the advice of the experts they hire. They are ignored time and time again. So to summarize none of the current managers on these three security teams have any technical or practical security experience.”
Vancouver-based PeaceHealth operates 10 hospitals across Oregon, Washington and Alaska, along with a large network of clinics, labs and other health-related programs. Its fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. The financial document obtained by The Lund Report provides a snapshot of PeaceHealth’s current year performance through April 30 – in other words, the first 10 months of the current 12-month fiscal year. While the most recent full-year financial reports for individual hospitals based in Oregon show those institutions turning large profits, including three of PeaceHealth’s four hospitals in the state in its 2014-2015 fiscal year, the parent company is not performing as well in the current year.
Diane can be reached at [email protected].
