Joint Commission names Dr. Erin DuPree chief medical officer & VP and other moves

The Joint Commission named Dr. Erin DuPree chief medical officer and VP of the organization's Center for Transforming Healthcare. DuPree had been CMO and senior VP for medical affairs at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, since September 2012.

Beginning in February 2014, Dr. Julie Freischlag will be chancellor for human health sciences at the University of California at Davis and dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine. For the past 10 years, Freischlag has been surgeon-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. At UC Davis, she will oversee the UC Davis Health System, which includes UC Davis Medical Center, as well as the medical school, nursing school, and medical group. Dr. Thomas Nesbitt, vice chancellor for strategic technologies and alliances, has been serving as interim vice chancellor and dean since Dr. Claire Pomeroy stepped down in June to become president of the New York-based Lasker Foundation.

Mount Sinai Hospital in New York made Dr. David Reich president and COO. Reich has been the hospital's interim leader since January, when Wayne Keathley stepped down to become president of Baylor College of Medicine Medical Center and Health Network, Houston. Reich has been chair of the hospital's anesthesiology department since 2004. ... Palos Community Hospital in Palos Heights, Ill., named Edgardo Tenreiro president and CEO, effective Nov. 15. Tenreiro has been VP and COO at General Health System in Baton Rouge, La., since 2008. At Palos he will succeed Sister Margaret Wright, who has led the hospital for 35 years and plans to resign. … Barbara Dember is the new president and CEO of Verde Valley Medical Center in Cottonwood, Ariz., operated by Flagstaff, Ariz.-based Northern Arizona Healthcare. Dember, 52, has been the hospital's interim leader for the past eight months, stepping in after Dr. James Bleicher left to become president and CEO of the PinnacleHealth Medical Group in Harrisburg, Pa. … Josiah “Sy” Johnson was named CEO and chief mission officer of PeaceHealth's Columbia Network, succeeding Joseph Kortum, who is retiring. Johnson, 40, also will maintain the role he assumed in September as chief administration officer of PeaceHealth's Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Wash.

Tom Zajac joined population health and data analytics company Wellcentive as CEO on Oct. 8. Zajac most recently was chief customer officer at Elsevier. He joined Elsevier in 2011 as president and CEO of MEDai, a subsidiary that provides predictive analytics and clinical solutions, and he previously spent eight years as president and CEO of CareScience. Frank Murphy, Wellcentive's top executive since 2011, left the Atlanta-based company in February.

Jerod Loeb, the Joint Commission executive VP for healthcare quality and measurement, died at his home Oct. 9 after a two-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 63. “He was Dr. Measurement,” said Dr. Dennis O'Leary, former president and CEO of the Joint Commission. “Many of the measures Jerod helped develop are still cores of the CMS measure set.” Loeb started at the Joint Commission in 1994, and his efforts were recognized with an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award, which was included with the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards given out jointly in 2012 by the Joint Commission and National Quality Forum. Before his work at the Joint Commission, he was assistant VP for science, technology and public health at the American Medical Association.