In The News
WMMC Medical Affairs Executive Resigns
In early February, Rosalio Lopez, MD,
Vice President of Medical Affairs,
announced his decision to leave White
Memorial Medical Center and look for
new opportunities closer to his home in
Huntington Beach. He is making this
change in order to shorten his commute
and spend more time with his daughters
Laura,17, and Elizabeth,15. He will be
at WMMC until mid-March.
“It’s impossible to do justice to the work done by Dr. Lopez. He brought together the right people and data to make patient care better at White Memorial, and kept us informed of the major trends in healthcare. As a result, he has positioned the hospital to compete effectively with some of the best hospitals in the nation,” said Brian Johnston, MD, president of the medical staff. “One reason he gained the acceptance, trust,and respect of our medical staff is the obvious fact that he cares deeply about patients – on a personal level. We will miss him.”
Hired six years ago, Dr. Lopez was the first VPMA at WMMC and one of the first at Adventist Health. In that capacity, he helped to define and develop this role locally and for the system. He worked collaboratively with our medical staff to make significant improvements in our clinical outcomes, patient safety and medical management. Some of the results of these key initiatives include higher scores on national quality indicators and fewer hospital-acquired infections and higher survival rates in the intensive care unit.
Dr. Lopez provided exceptional leadership for pharmacy, risk management, infection control and care management. Also, he worked closely with our corporate office and community leaders to make meaningful progress in government relations and legislative affairs for our hospital and our system. And he served as a hospital spokesperson on numerous occasions on diverse range of issues.
Most recently, he spearheaded the development of our new White Memorial Health Plan, giving hospital employees more flexibility and choice for their own medical care.
“I want to thank Dr. Lopez for his commitment to our hospital and community during his tenure at the White,” said Beth Zachary, president and CEO. “His leadership not only helped us to improve the quality of care we provide to our patients, but also drove us to become a better hospital all around.”
As a next step, the hospital’s executive team will seek broad input and work closely with the medical staff to determine how best to respond to this development.
In the interim, Lynne Whaley, RN, senior vice president of clinical operations and CNE, will assume responsibility for pharmacy and care management, and John Raffoul, senior vice president of finance, will oversee our medical directorship agreements. Risk management and infection control will report directly to the president and CEO.
Posted 3/21/08
