Rutherford named CFO of HCA and other moves

In a series of leadership changes prompted by HCA CEO Richard Bracken's retirement at the end of this year, William Rutherford will become CFO and executive VP. Rutherford, 49, joined Nashville-based HCA in 1986 as a staff auditor and has served in a variety of roles, most recently as COO of the hospital chain's physician services group. He will replace Milton Johnson as CFO, managing HCA's treasury department, office of the controller, information technology, government programs and strategic resource group. That will become effective Jan. 1 when Johnson takes over as president and CEO. … John Holland will join LHP Hospital Group as CEO on Oct. 24, succeeding Dan Moen. Moen will become executive chairman of LHP's board of directors, and current Chairman James Shelton will serve as lead director, the Plano, Texas-based company announced. Moen and Shelton are co-founders of LHP, established in 2008. The privately held for-profit company forms joint ventures with not-for-profit hospitals and hospital systems to acquire, own and manage their acute-care facilities. Holland, 56, comes to LHP after a 30-year career with Tenet Healthcare Corp., where he most recently served as senior VP of hospital operations. … Dave Gravender was named CIO at Alameda Health System, the Oakland, Calif.-area safety net provider operated by Alameda County. Gravender, 54, comes to Alameda Health System from another public system, Kaweah Delta Healthcare District in Visalia, Calif., where he had been VP and CIO since 1998. … William Brownlow retired Sept. 30 after 17 years as senior VP and CFO at Silver Cross Hospital, New Lenox, Ill. Brownlow, 62, joined the not-for-profit healthcare provider in 1996. John Krepps, 58, will succeed Brownlow in the role. Since joining the organization in 1995, Krepps has served as controller, associate VP of finance and most recently VP of finance. … McLaren Health Care hired Michael Taylor as its first executive VP and COO, effective Sept. 30, and Ron Strachan joined the Flint, Mich.-based system as CIO on Oct. 1. Taylor, 57, for the past two years was senior VP of operations at Dignity Health, overseeing the San Francisco-based system's operations in the Sacramento, Calif., area. He previously was a senior VP for Baylor Health Care System in Dallas. Strachan, 52, comes to McLaren from Community Health Network, a health system based in Indianapolis, where he had been CIO since April 2011. In Flint, he succeeds Gayle Consiglio. McLaren also recently hired its first chief medical officer.

Dr. Mike McKenna, 60, joined the leadership team in July. McKenna previously was VP, medical management, at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill. …

Dr. Mark Schafer, chief medical officer for the MemorialCare Medical Foundation, will be promoted to CEO of upon the retirement of Patrick Kapsner on Jan. 1. The not-for-profit MemorialCare foundation is part of Fountain Valley, Calif.-based MemorialCare Health System and includes 2,000 employed and affiliated physicians operating within either the MemorialCare Medical Group or the Greater Newport Physicians Independent Practice Association. Schafer, 49, has been MemorialCare's CMO since 2010. Previously, he was CMO for the Bristol Park Medical Group, now part of MemorialCare, and was a founder of the Ascender Software health information technology company.

David Muntz, who stepped away from the No. 2 health IT job at HHS on Oct. 5, will join GetWellNetwork as CIO this month. GetWellNetwork develops tools that help providers educate and engage patients via television, mobile devices and computers. Muntz joined the Office of the National Coordinator in January and previously was senior VP and CIO of Dallas-based Baylor Health Care System. … McKesson Corp. hired Symantec Corp. executive James Beer as executive VP and CFO. Beer, 52, has been CFO at Symantec since 2006 and was to join the San Francisco-based pharmaceutical distribution and health information technology company Oct. 9. He succeeds Jeff Campbell, who left McKesson in June to become CFO at American Express Co. … Emdeon replaced CEO George Lazenby with former Oracle executive Neil de Crescenzo. Lazenby will become a senior adviser to private equity firm Blackstone Capital Partners, the majority investor in the Nashville-based vendor of technology for revenue-cycle and payment management and clinical information exchange. Crescenzo, 52, joined Oracle in 2006 and since 2008 had been senior VP and general manager of the company's health sciences division. Lazenby, Emdeon's CEO since 2007, will advise Blackstone on healthcare technology and services investments and will advise Emdeon's board and senior management.

MedAssets named Amy Amick, 41, president of its revenue-cycle management segment. Effective Sept. 30, Amick oversees the day-to-day operations of the segment, which includes client service, product development and management, and sales. She joined MedAssets from healthcare technology company M-Modal, where she was COO. At MedAssets, Amick replaces Greg Strobel, 51, who will help with the transition and the completion of MedAssets' long-term strategic planning process.