Baylor St. Luke's Announces Leadership Additions

New Leadership Moving Swiftly on Executive Transitions

HOUSTON – January 18, 2019 – Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center is moving swiftly with key additions to its executive team to lead new initiatives in critical areas like clinical excellence, patient experience, and workplace culture.

“We are moving rapidly to recruit and onboard the executive expertise we need to address the deficiencies cited last week in a Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) review, even before receiving the final report. Also, we are working on our 90-day plan to review current operations and to take every step necessary to keep us on the path of excellence and to earn the trust of our patients,” said T. Douglas Lawson, PhD, Baylor St. Luke’s President and CEO of Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) Texas Division, a regional health system of 16 hospitals. Lawson was named President of Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center on January 14.

“These newest members of the Baylor St. Luke’s team are bringing both the skills and fresh perspective that will enable Baylor St. Luke’s to fulfill our mission for our patients and community as a leading teaching hospital in the South.”

In addition to Dr. Lawson’s expanded role at Baylor St. Luke’s, three new leaders at the hospital include:
 

• Baylor St. Luke’s Chief Medical Officer, John Byrne, M.D. – Dr. John Byrne joins Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center as Senior Vice President & Chief Medical Officer. He joins Baylor St. Luke’s from Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Gulf Coast Division, where he has served as Chief Medical Officer. In this role, he led HCA to significant accomplishments including a 65 percent improvement in employee engagement in quality, double-digit improvements for three consecutive years on all 42 major Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality domains, substantial improvements in physician engagement, and growth in the organization’s cardiology, EP, and cardiac surgery programs. Previously, Byrne served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer at Care New England Memorial Hospital, Chief of Cardiac Surgery and Co-Director of Cardiovascular Center for Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and Chairman of Department of Cardiac Surgery, Co-Director of Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute, Surgeon-in-Chief and Perfusion Services Medical Director for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
   
• Baylor St. Luke’s Acting Chief Nursing Officer, Loretta Lee, RN – Loretta Lee, MA, MS, RN, has more than 30 years of nursing and leadership experience, including senior leadership roles at Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center, Baylor University Medical Center. Mercy Health Partners of Southwest Ohio and Loyola University Medical Center.
   
• Baylor St. Luke’s Vice President of Quality, Megan Fischer, MBA – Megan Fischer, MBA, joins Baylor St. Luke’s from Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) Gulf Coast, where she served as Vice President, Quality and Patient Safety. She previously served as Vice President, Quality at HCA Midwest. During her tenure with HCA, Fischer provided leadership to three hospitals with 900+ beds in the Gulf Coast Division, with oversight for organizational performance improvement, core measures, infection prevention and control, patient advocacy, regulatory readiness, employee health, patient safety, and risk management. She also served in key leadership roles at hospitals and healthcare organizations in Missouri and Alaska.
   

Baylor St. Luke’s has been co-owned by Catholic Health Initiatives and the Baylor College of Medicine since 2014 and is governed by a joint venture Board. What began as a 180-bed general hospital is now a major teaching and research institution serving the entire region. Looking forward, the hospital is at a threshold for even more dramatic growth and improvement, as it begins to move programs from the current location to the new McNair Campus. The previously announced replacement facility is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2024.
 

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About Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center is an 881-bed quaternary care academic medical center that is a joint venture between Baylor College of Medicine and St. Luke’s Health. Located in the Texas Medical Center, the hospital is the home of the Texas Heart® Institute, a cardiovascular research and education institution founded in 1962 by Denton A. Cooley, MD. The hospital was the first facility in Texas and the Southwest designated a Magnet® hospital for Nursing Excellence by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, receiving the award four consecutive times. Baylor St. Luke’s also has three community emergency centers offering adult and pediatric care for the Greater Houston area.

Media Contact
Josh Snellgrove
Division Director of Marketing
Marketing Communications
CHI Texas Division
713.503.0921
[email protected]