Boehner's press secretary leaves for AHIP

Brendan Buck, press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), has left his role in Boehner's office after more than three years to become spokesman and VP of communications for America's Health Insurance Plans.

Buck, 32, began his new position May 14 with the Washington-based national trade association that represents health insurers. He will lead the media relations team and serve as the group's primary spokesman.

During his tenure as Boehner's press secretary, Buck took a leave of absence in 2012 to serve in Mitt Romney's presidential campaign as press secretary for vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Pamela Sutton-Wallace has been named CEO of the University of Virginia Medical Center, Charlottesville, effective in July. She will succeed R. Edward Howell, who is retiring in June after more than 12 years as the medical center's CEO.

He will continue teaching in the Department of Public Health Sciences after his retirement.

Sutton-Wallace, 44, has spent the past 17 years with the Duke University Health System. She is currently senior vice president of hospital operations at Duke University Hospital, Durham, N.C.

Darrell Griffith has been named associate VP for health affairs/finance and administration for the University of Louisville (Ky.) Health Sciences Center. He also will assume the position of VP and CFO for University of Louisville Physicians.

Griffith, 55, has spent the past 11 years at the University of Kentucky. He has been executive director for the faculty practice organization at UK Healthcare since 2006. The university credits him with developing the UK Healthcare strategic plan that saw unprecedented growth in revenue and outpatient care.

Patrick Clark has joined Roswell, Ga.-based population health management provider Wellcentive as its CFO. Clark had been CFO at the former Vocalocity, now Vonage Business Solutions, a cloud-based communications services company. Other former positions include serving as CFO and executive VP of finance at the Weather Channel.

Wellcentive offers cloud-based products to track care workflow, perform care gap analysis, and provide automated patient outreach, outcomes reporting, predictive modeling and risk assessment, among other services.

Dr. Paul Billings is the new chief medical officer of Omicia, an Oakland, Calif.-based company that provides genome analysis technology for research, diagnostic and clinical applications.

Billings, who will also serve on Omicia's scientific advisory board, joins the company as it is moves more toward individualized medicine enabled by the understanding of the genetic basis of disease, drug response and health. Its products are in use at more than 300 academic and clinical facilities worldwide.

Billings comes to Omicia from Life Technologies, where he also served as CMO. He is also a founder of CBR Systems for cordblood stem cell banking and GeneSage, provider of genomic information and online testing.