Who: James Murray, 63
New role: CEO of LifeCare Health Partners. Murray replaces Phillip Douglas, who spent a decade in the role and last year announced his retirement from the Plano, Texas-based health system. LifeCare operates 24 long-term acute-care hospitals in nine states and also provides behavioral health and transitional care services.
Background: Murray comes to LifeCare from Humana, where he served in various leadership roles over the past 28 years, most recently as executive VP and COO. Earlier, he was a partner at Coopers & Lybrand, which later became part of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Value-based care: Murray will explore a move into risk- and value-based care. But he said there's preliminary work to be done. “First, we have to study a lot of data to identify how we can add value and create a value proposition,” he said.
Positioned for growth: “What I'm most excited about is the opportunity to reposition LifeCare,” Murray said. To do that, he said the company will need to focus on four things: strengthening relationships to boost referrals; getting its portfolio to the right size; exploring new lines of business; and watching the balance sheet.
