Interim CEO for Cook County Health and Hospitals System named, and other news

Dr. John Jay Shannon has been named interim CEO at Cook County Health and Hospitals System, Chicago, with the departure of Dr. Ramanathan Raju, who is leaving to lead New York City's public hospital system.

Shannon, 53, has served in the No. 2 post at the Cook County system as chief of clinical integration, overseeing patient safety and quality. He has spent 15 years in the system between various stints and has served in his current position since February 2013, after stepping down as chief medical officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas.

Jacklynn Lesniak has been named chief nursing officer and senior VP of patient-care services for Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Midwestern Regional Medical Center, Zion, Ill.

Lesniak, 49, has more than 25 yearsof healthcare experience. Most recently, Lesniak served as CNO and COO of UW Health Partners Watertown (Wis.) Regional Medical Center.

James Connelly has been named president and CEO of Health Alliance Plan and executive VP of Henry Ford Health System.

Connelly has served as interim president and CEO for the Michigan not-for-profit health plan, as well as executive VP and CFO of the Detroit-based health system. He was responsible for overseeing the financing of the five-year, $300 million expansion at Henry Ford Hospital announced in 2006 and the $360 million construction of Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, completed in 2009.

Joe Schmitt, 59, who has served as CFO of Health Alliance Plan and the Henry Ford Hospital and Health Network, will replace Connelly in the role of acting CFO for Henry Ford Health System.

Connelly's age was not immediately available.

Cogent Healthcare, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based company that provides hospitalist and inpatient care management services for hospitals, named Dr. Lakshmi Halasyamani its chief medical officer.

Halasyamani comes to Cogent Healthcare from St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Michigan, where she has been an attending physician since 2000. Halasyamani also has served as CMO of St. Joseph Mercy Hospitals since 2011.

Halasyamani replaces Dr. Ron Greeno, who moved into his new role as executive VP of strategy and innovation for Cogent.

Dr. Donald Morton, the surgical oncologist who helped establish the John Wayne Cancer Institute at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., passed away last month. He was 79.

Morton is perhaps best known for developing the sentinel lymph node biopsy technique used in melanoma, breast and other cancers. It's a minimally invasive method of determining the spread of cancer cells. Use of the process is estimated to save the U.S. healthcare system $3.8 billion annually, according to the cancer institute.

He was a leader in the research and treatment of melanoma, and spent much of his career working on a therapeutic vaccine for the deadliest form of skin cancer. He served as chief of general surgery and chief of the division of surgical oncology at UCLA. And in 1981, he opened the John Wayne Cancer Clinic at UCLA along with the family of actor John Wayne, one of his former patients. Ten years later, the clinic was expanded into the John Wayne Cancer Institute.