Amita Health today named Keith A. Parrott president and CEO of the Lisle, Ill.-based, 19-hospital network.
The joint venture of Ascension's Alexian Brothers Health System, Adventist Midwest Health and Presence Health had been searching for a new leader, as former CEO Mark Frey stepped down in August.
Parrott on Jan. 13 takes over for interim co-CEOs Karen Springer, executive vice president of performance optimization and nursing operations for Ascension, and Eddie Soler, executive vice president of finance for AdventHealth, Amita said in a statement today.Parrott previously served as CEO of Tenet Healthcare's Alabama/Tennessee Group and CEO of Brookwood Baptist Health, a joint venture between Tenet and Baptist Health System of Alabama, the statement says.
"Keith is a mission-focused leader who has a history of producing sustainable results that enable nonprofit hospitals to meet community needs," Amita Chair Randy Haffner said in the statement. "He is an astute executive known for leading high-performing teams and working with stakeholders to implement key strategies."
Frey, who served as CEO of Amita since it was created in 2015, was working to turn the historically hospital-centric system into an organization focused on preventive, outpatient and virtual care. As part of the transformation, Amita has doubled down on so-called service rationalization, which involves discontinuing or centralizing service lines to improve care and save money on surgical equipment, space and staff.
Last year Frey was tasked with the integration of Chicago-based, 10-hospital Presence. Today Amita is the largest hospital network in Illinois, with 19 hospitals, more than 230 outpatient sites and 900 employed health care providers.
Amita didn't announce Frey's departure publicly, and it wouldn't say why he left. The hospital chain also declined to comment further on Parrott's appointment.
Frey wasn't the only Amita leader to step down this year. Crain's reported in September that five Amita CEOs who oversaw a total of eight hospitals quietly stepped down in 2019. The departures followed the January appointments of three regional operating teams, as well as a post-acute care team, to support the growing chain's new scale and geography.
This article was originally published in Crain's Chicago Business.
