Penn State Health names Wood chief medical officer

Penn State Health has appointed Dr. Kenneth Wood as executive vice president and chief medical officer. Wood currently serves Lifespan Health System in Rhode Island as executive vice president and chief clinical officer and is a professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

The health system redefined the role of chief clinical officer into a new systemwide leadership position, which is strategically focused on oversight of clinical care standards; the physician scope of practice; medical staff credentialing; and the overall quality, safety and value of care provided across the health system.

“Dr. Wood is a veteran health care administrator, educator and researcher who brings three decades of clinical experience across diverse settings, ranging from community hospitals to large, integrated academic medical centers with him to Penn State Health,” said Steve Massini, CEO. “He is uniquely qualified to lead our efforts to develop a systemwide vision of patient service excellence that champions patient-centered care and the highest levels of quality and safety.”

In his three years with Lifespan, a comprehensive academic health system in Providence, Rhode Island, Wood has been instrumental in the development of performance and incentive metrics that have assisted departments in achieving national rankings, the restructuring of patient throughput and capacity management, and the development of an alternative sites of care initiative for long-stay patients.

Prior to joining Lifespan, Wood served as the associate chief medical officer for the University of Maryland Medical System and the chief clinical officer for the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore after he was initially recruited to develop its critical care network and integrate its eight hospitals into a hub-and-spoke model. In addition, he was chief medical officer for Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pennsylvania, and held a number of leadership roles at UW Health, the integrated health system of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Board-certified in internal medicine and critical care medicine, Wood earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, before completing his medical degree at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Philadelphia. He completed an internal medicine residency at what is now Jefferson Abington Hospital, Abington, Pennsylvania, and a fellowship in critical care medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Camden, Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center.

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