Dr. Jay Bhatt named chief health officer at the Illinois Hospital Association, and other news makers

Dr. Jay Bhatt has been named chief health officer at the Illinois Hospital Association.

Bhatt, 38, is responsible for organizing physician activities and providing clinical leadership for the IHA's Institute for Innovations in Care and Quality.

The new position is part of the organization's commitment to support quality and patient safety improvements while promoting physician-hospital alignment, IHA President and CEO Maryjane Wurth said in a statement.

Bhatt is an internist at the Erie Family Health Center in Chicago and a physician with Northwestern Medicine.

Previously, Bhatt worked at the Chicago Department of Public Health as managing deputy commissioner and chief strategy and innovation officer.

Dr. Karen Carbone has stepped down as president and COO of Wake Forest Baptist Health system, Winston-Salem, N.C., after just one year to pursue other opportunities, according to the health system.

Wake Forest officials no longer intend to have anyone in the president or COO role.

Instead, Dr. Kevin High, professor and chair of internal medicine at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, has taken on Carbone's responsibilities as executive VP of health system affairs.

High joined the Wake Forest faculty in 1993 and became its chairman of internal medicine last May. As chair, he helped design the medical center's clinical enterprise governance structure and has worked on improving safety and quality throughout the system, according to the hospital.

Dr. Bruce Swords has been promoted to chief medical officer at Cone Health, Greensboro, N.C.

Swords, 52, was chief of the primary-care division of affiliate LeBauer HealthCare, which merged with Cone Health in 1999. He became VP and chief medical information officer in 2009.

Swords was an inaugural graduate of the Cone Health Physician Leadership Academy, a partnership with the Center for Creative Leadership.

Mark Harrison, a former DaVita executive, has been named CFO of UC San Diego Health Sciences.

Harrison, 57, oversees finances for the university's schools of medicine and pharmacy, as well as the UC San Diego Medical Group and the UC San Diego Health System.

Most recently, Harrison was principal and founder of Apex Healthcare Group, a healthcare consultancy in Manhattan Beach, Calif. He also was a senior VP at Accretive Health, a Chicago-based revenue-cycle management company. Previously, he was CFO of kidney-care provider DaVita for two years and CFO of Minneapolis-based Allina Hospitals and Clinics.

Bill Heller has been named president at Weatherby Healthcare, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a large locum tenens staffing firm and a division of CHG Healthcare Services.

Heller, 45, who has more than 16 years in the healthcare staffing sector, has held several leadership roles since he joined CHG in 2007, most recently as president of RNnetwork, CHG's travel nurse division. Previously, he was VP at Allied Staffing, another CHG company, and VP at AMN Healthcare.