CommonSpirit Health announced today that CEO Lloyd Dean will be retiring from the $30 billion nonprofit system next summer.
The organization’s Board of Stewardship Trustees has already kicked off its search for Dean’s successor, according to the announcement.
“During his 22 years of service, Lloyd has been one of our country’s leading voices for expanding access to quality health care,” Tessie Guillermo, chairwoman of the CommonSpirit board, said in a statement. “He was a driving force behind establishing and growing CommonSpirit into one of the country’s largest, most diverse and leading health systems. Lloyd steered our organization through one of the most important periods for health care in our country’s history, and we will forever be grateful for his leadership.”
Nineteen years of Dean’s time at the top was spent at Dignity Health (previously Catholic Healthcare West), which merged with Catholic Health Initiatives in early 2019 to form CommonSpirit Health. He played a leading role in guiding the organizations through their transition and, in July 2020, was named as CommonSpirit’s sole CEO.
Today, CommonSpirit is one of the country’s largest provider organizations with more than 1,500 care sites, 140 hospitals and 150,000 employees and 25,000 physicians across 22 states.
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The Catholic health system is the single largest provider of Medicaid services and, according to its 2021 financials, brings in $33.3 billion in revenues while providing more than $5 billion in charity care, community benefit and unreimbursed government programs.
The 71-year-old CEO is a vocal supporter of healthcare equality, often citing his own upbringing in rural Michigan as an influence on his advocacy.
In recent years, he’s led the health system into "equity pledges," gun violence awareness and $100 million partnerships with the Morehouse School of Medicine and others to train more Black physicians across the country. Prior to that, he pointed to a partnership with the Obama administration and legislators to rally support for the Affordable Care Act as one of the greatest accomplishments of his career.
“I’m enormously grateful for the opportunities afforded me to live out my passion—access to health care for all people, especially the poor and the vulnerable. I’ve been blessed to serve with some of the most dedicated caregivers and leaders in healthcare,” Dean said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to the next year during which I plan to advance our strategic priorities, ensure our patients are receiving the very best care possible, support our caregivers, do everything I can to help end this pandemic, and continue to advocate for health equity and social justice in this extraordinary country.”
Dean is among the highest-paid nonprofit health system CEOs in the country. He brought in a total of $16.7 million during fiscal year 2019.
CommonSpirit’s board said it expects to have a replacement named by the time Dean makes his exit next summer.