Mary Giliberti named executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness and other news

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has appointed Mary Giliberti executive director.

An attorney, Giliberti, 47, has served as a section chief within HHS' Office for Civil Rights since 2008 and worked for three years as NAMI's director of public policy for federal and state issues. She replaces current NAMI executive director Michael Fitzpatrick, who last year announced his intention to step down at the end of 2013.

In addition to her work with HHS and NAMI, Giliberti has served as a senior attorney at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and as disability counsel for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The Gulf Coast division of for-profit hospital chain HCA named Matt Dixon CEO of its Pearland (Texas) Medical Center, which is scheduled to open next year.

Dixon, 41, comes to HCA's Gulf Coast division from the chain's MountainStar unit, where he has served as COO of Salt Lake City-based St. Mark's Hospital since 2006. Utah-based MountainStar also includes hospitals in Idaho and Alaska.

Pearland Medical Center will be the 10th HCA-affiliated hospital in the Houston area when it opens in the fall of 2014.

Richard Floyd will succeed Anthony Armada as president of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill.

Floyd, 59, has been president and CEO of Sherman Hospital in Elgin, Ill., since 2001. During his tenure, he led the planning and construction of a $325 million replacement hospital completed in 2009. Advocate Health Care acquired Sherman in June.

“Rick's extensive knowledge of hospital operations and outstanding leadership skills will serve him well as leader of one of Advocate's flagship hospitals,” William Santulli, Advocate Health Care's executive VP and COO, said in a news release.

Armada, the top executive at Advocate Lutheran for the past four years, left this fall to become CEO of Swedish Health Services in Seattle.

Arnold Kimmel was hired to replace Seth Warren as CEO of Franciscan St. James Health, a two-campus hospital in Chicago's south suburbs of Chicago Heights and Olympia Fields. St. James' parent, Mishawaka, Ind.-based Franciscan Alliance, is seeking a buyer for the facilities.

Kimmel, who has had a long career as an executive for Chicago-area hospitals, most recently served as CEO of MetroSouth Medical Center in nearby Blue Island, Ill. In 2008, Kimmel helped a private equity firm acquire that struggling hospital from St. Louis-based SSM Health Care. It's now owned by Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute has tapped Steven Clauser of the National Cancer Institute to serve as director of its Improving Healthcare Systems program.

Clauser will succeed Dr. Chad Boult, who held the post since October 2012.

PCORI, a Washington-based not-for-profit, was established by the healthcare reform law to fund and promote comparative effectiveness research. The Improving Healthcare Systems program that Clauser will head is one of five that correspond to PCORI's five main research priorities, which include improving health disparities and assessing prevention, diagnosis and treatment options.

Clauser served since 2005 as chief of the outcomes research branch of the NCI's division of cancer control and population sciences.