Three Duke Regional execs asked to step down after review of hospital performance
Three executives at Duke Regional Hospital were asked to step down after the head of the Duke University Health System decided a change in management was needed to improve performance.
The health system’s CEO, Dr. Craig Albanese, announced the changes in a message to staff this week.
“After a thorough assessment of Duke Regional Hospital’s performance over the past year,” Albanese wrote, “I have determined the need for transformation, which requires making several leadership changes in order to best position our hospital to fulfill its mission of caring for our patients and community for the long term.”
The executives at Duke Regional who lost their jobs are Mitch Babb, the chief operating officer; Jonathan Hoy, the chief financial officer; and Vicky Orto, the chief nursing officer. Babb and Orto had been in their roles at Duke Regional about 14 years, while Hoy had been CFO for 15 years, according to their LinkedIn pages.
Their departures were first reported by WRAL-TV.
In his message to hospital staff, Albanese did not go into details about deficiencies he hoped to fix but did highlight some general concerns.
“In today’s fast-changing healthcare landscape, nationally and locally, we must continue to transform and act with urgency to meet the needs of our patients and our organization,” he wrote. “That means advancing how we deliver care, share best practices and expertise, break down silos, and promote innovation and systemness to improve the performance of our health system.”
In a statement, Duke Health said the management changes were a “personnel issue,” and that it would release no further information about them. A spokeswoman declined to say how the changes might affect patients.
Duke Regional Hospital opened in 1976 as county-owned Durham County General Hospital. The hospital merged with the Duke University Health System in 1998, and “Duke” was added to the name 15 years later.
The hospital has 388 inpatient beds and more than 3,500 employees.
This story was originally published April 21, 2023 at 2:29 PM.
