Sarah Cole has been promoted to CEO of CHAN Healthcare, and other news makers

Sarah Cole has been promoted to CEO of CHAN Healthcare, a risk consulting and internal audit firm.

Cole, 42, is currently senior VP at the Clayton, Miss.-based firm, a subsidiary of Crowe Horwath, an accounting and consulting firm where Cole is also a partner. Starting in April, she will lead the faith-based company's 320 employees and oversee a client base of over 700 hospitals and healthcare organizations.

When she joined CHAN in 2003, she led the internal audit team at St. Vincent Health, an Indianapolis-based system owned by Ascension Health. She later moved to the St. Louis area to manage all services provided to Ascension, CHAN's largest client.

Karen Watts has been named executive VP and chief nursing officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas. She begins May 11.

Watts, 58, comes to Parkland from Northeast Georgia Health System in Gainesville, where since 2013 she has served as VP of patient-care services and CNO. Previously, she was senior VP and CNO at Good Shepherd Health System in Longview, Texas, and held a variety of leadership roles at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, Ga., including CNO.

Dr. John Pellicone has been appointed chief medical officer at Metropolitan Hospital Center, part of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp.

Pellicone, a pulmonologist, started his role at the Manhattan hospital this month. He last served as CMO of both Helen Hayes Hospital and Nyack Hospital in Rockland County, N.Y., which are part of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System.

When he joined Helen Hayes Hospital in 1989, Pellicone was director of the specialty-care unit. He was named director of medicine at Nyack Hospital in 1996 and later as CMO in 2001. He became CMO at Helen Hayes in 2002.

MedAssets has made two changes in its C-suite, just over a month after its founder, John Bardis, stepped down as CEO at the Alpharetta, Ga.-based group purchasing and revenue-cycle management company.

Charles Garner has been promoted to executive VP and chief strategy and transformation officer, a new position at the company, after serving as executive VP and CFO. Anthony Colaluca has joined to replace him as CFO.

Garner, 44, became CFO in April 2011. He joined MedAssets in 2005. Before that, he worked at Coca-Cola Enterprises, Bain & Co. and American Management Systems, a consulting firm that is now a part of CGI Group.

Colaluca, 48, most recently worked as an independent business consultant. Between 2005 and 2010, he served as CFO of Intergraph Corp., a engineering and geospatial software company.

Thomas Leonard has been named CEO of Universal Hospital Services, a medical equipment management and service provider.

Leonard, 47, will begin his new role April 13. He replaces Gary Blackford, who resigned last year as chairman and CEO after leading the company for 12 years.

Before joining Universal, Leonard was president of medical systems for San Diego-based medical-device maker CareFusion Corp., which was recently acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Co.