St. Francis hires interim CEO as search new top executive continues

St. Francis Hospital has hired a Phoenix-area health care executive to manage the day-to-day operations as it looks for a permanent CEO, the hospital announced Friday afternoon.

Dan Jones will start Monday at the Columbus hospital that is owned by LifePoint Health out of Brentwood, Tenn. Jones replaces David Koontz, who had led the hospital through the LifePoint purchase in 2015 and was named CEO in early 2016. Koontz announced his resignation on July 26 to move back to his home in Houston.

“Jones has more than 20 years of successful healthcare leadership – ranging in scope from daily hospital operations and multi-site health system management to ambulatory and inpatient care and strategic planning and execution,” the St. Francis memo to its nearly 2,500 employees read. “He will provide daily leadership to the hospital and help ensure a smooth transition while we search to find the right person to lead the hospital on a more permanent basis.”

Jones has a master’s degree in health services administration from Virginia Commonwealth University, according to his Linkedin page.

He has worked for hospitals or health care companies in Phoenix, Kansas City, New Orleans and Charlotte. Most recently, he was CEO of Abrazo Community Health Network in Phoenix, according to his Linkedin page.

The search for a new CEO is being conducted by LifePoint, St. Francis Board Chairman Steve Butler said last month.

The move comes as St. Francis, marred in financial difficulty since 2014, struggles to regain profitability. On July 11, St. Francis Hospital announced it was laying off 55 employees. In addition to eliminating the jobs in non-bedside care positions, an undetermined number of the hospital’s employees had their hours reduced, said Koontz.

At the time, Koontz said the hospital was continuing to operate at a financial loss, but the losses were getting smaller. He declined to say how much money the hospital was losing annually, but did say it was “in the tens of millions of dollars.”

This story was originally published August 11, 2017 at 4:57 PM with the headline "St. Francis hires interim CEO as search new top executive continues."