New Members Appointed to UHC Governing Board

CHICAGO, Feb. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- UHC, an alliance of 120 academic medical centers and 299 of their affiliated hospital organizations, announces the appointment of 5 new members to its Governing Board.

"We are pleased to welcome these distinguished new board members to an exceptional group of leaders on our Governing Board," said Irene M. Thompson, UHC's president and chief executive officer. "Through the continued strong leadership and support of UHC's member boards, UHC remains an innovative leader for hospital members. We look forward to the contributions and expertise of these leaders."

The newly appointed UHC Governing Board members are:

Penny Castellano, MD, is chief medical officer and chief quality officer of The Emory Clinic, Inc., which is the primary port of access to adult patient health care in Emory Healthcare and the largest group practice in Georgia.

Elizabeth (Liz) Concordia is executive vice president of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and president of the Hospital and Community Services Division. She is 1 of 4 executive vice presidents at UPMC and has wide-ranging responsibility for the strategic direction, clinical operations, and financial success of the system, which includes 20 hospitals with 5,100 licensed beds and 17 senior community facilities with 2,400 beds/units.

Stephen Lawler is president of Vidant Medical Center, 1 of 4 academic medical centers in North Carolina. The medical center serves as the teaching hospital for the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and is the flagship hospital of Vidant Health, a regional health system serving 29 counties and 1.4 million people. Vidant Health is made up of 9 hospitals, physician practices, home health, hospice, and wellness centers.

Sharon O'Keefe is president of University of Chicago Medical Center, which is part of the University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences, an academic medical center consistently recognized as a leader in patient care, medical education, and research. Under her leadership, revenue and patient admissions have risen and the Center for Care and Discovery, a 1.2 million-square-foot specialty care hospital, was opened. She is one of about a dozen women leaders of major academic medical centers in the country.

David Posch is chief executive officer of Vanderbilt University Hospital and Clinics. Each year, Vanderbilt's 2,200 clinical providers see more than 1.8 million patients, and its hospitals admit more than 58,000 patients.

The UHC Governing Board oversees the management of UHC's business and comprises a subset of the UHC Member Board of Directors. The new Governing Board members will each serve a 4-year term.

About UHC

UHC is an alliance of the nation's leading nonprofit academic medical centers, which are focused on delivering world-class patient care. Formed in 1984 and based in Chicago, Ill, UHC fosters collaboration with and among its 120 academic medical center and 299 affiliated hospital members through its renowned solutions in the areas of performance improvement, comparative data and analytics, supply chain management, strategic research, and public policy. UHC helps its members achieve excellence in quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness. UHC's membership includes the leading nonprofit academic medical centers in the United States. For more information, visit uhc.edu.

SOURCE UHC