Summa Health CEO Tom Strauss retiring at year-end

Who: Tom Strauss, 61

Current role: CEO of Summa Health, Akron, Ohio, a post he's held for the past 15 years at the four-hospital system. He will retire at the end of the year, but plans to hold a part-time leadership role with the Summa Foundation.

On Summa's newest partnership: Last year, Summa agreed to a deal with Catholic Health Partners, Cincinnati, now called Mercy Health. Mercy took a 30% stake in Summa and agreed to invest $250 million. “We went through a very deliberate process in July 2012 to look for a minority investment. We found one through Catholic Health Partners … that really allows us to have a partner to share in a mission, vision and values, invest serious dollars on our balance sheet and believe in the same view of healthcare for the future.”

On Summa's ACO: Its NewHealth Collaborative, an ACO with more than 400 physicians and 80,000 covered lives, was created in 2011. “We're starting to see really strong performance and decreasing the cost of care. Building that infrastructure at a time when we're still getting paid fee-for-service is a big positive.”

Advice to younger healthcare execs: “The days of being able to stay in the old fee-for-service world are over. A true move to population health, even though we get paid under fee-for-service, is the only way of the future. If you stay under fee-for-service, it'll be death by a thousand cuts.”