PeaceHealth Names New Chief Financial Officer

BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Kevin Walstrom, formerly the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Providence Health Care in Eastern Washington, has been named senior vice president and CFO at PeaceHealth, a regional health system that serves communities in Alaska, Washington and Oregon.

Walstrom worked for PeaceHealth from 1987 through 2001, before leaving to assume the CFO duties for Providence's Holy Family Hospital in Spokane. In his last position at PeaceHealth, Walstrom was the regional CFO for the organization's Lower Columbia Region, based in Longview, WA.

"Kevin's expertise and mission-focused financial leadership made him a clear choice to assume this critically important executive role for us," said Alan Yordy, PeaceHealth's president and chief mission officer. "We are excited to welcome Kevin back to PeaceHealth as we shape our next decade of service and care to our communities."

"Kevin will bring a wealth of experience to PeaceHealth as their Chief Financial Officer," said Andy Agwunobi, MD, chief executive of Providence Health Care in Spokane. "He has provided Providence with extraordinary strategic financial leadership and played a vital role in securing our ministry's financial stability. We wish him all the best in his new role at PeaceHealth."

At Providence, Walstrom was responsible for the financial management of the organization's largest service area and its flagship hospital, Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's Hospital, in Spokane. The Eastern Washington service area includes hospitals, a medical group and joint ventures with total net revenues of $1.4 billion. At PeaceHealth, Walstrom will oversee the financial management of hospitals, provider clinics and laboratory services in Ketchikan, AK; Bellingham and Longview, WA; and Eugene/Springfield, Cottage Grove, Florence and Portland, Oregon.

PeaceHealth is a WA-based not-for-profit healthcare system serving multiple rural and urban communities in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, PeaceHealth has provided health care services to Northwest communities for more than a century. PeaceHealth annually receives national recognition for innovations in patient-centered care, patient safety and healthcare technology. Research published in the June 2008 edition of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety ranked PeaceHealth as one of the top five health care systems in the country for quality of care, and the leading system in the West. PeaceHealth was named one of America's top 50 best-performing health care systems in a 2009 Thomson Reuters study published by Modern Healthcare magazine. For information, visit www.peacehealth.org.

SOURCE PeaceHealth