Hospital Association of Rhode Island appoints new leadership

PROVIDENCE – The Hospital Association of Rhode Island Board of Trustees elected new officers during the association’s recent annual meeting. Dr. Christopher Lehrach was appointed chairman and Dr. Michael Dacey was named vice chairman.

Lehrach, CIO at Lawrence + Memorial Healthcare and president of the L+M Medical Group, will serve a two-year term. Dacey, president and CEO of Kent Hospital, will also serve for two years.

“Only by working together will we transform Rhode Island health care in a direction that achieves our goals of higher quality and lower cost. At the center of this discussion must be the benefit of the patient. When the inevitable differences of opinion occur, this must be our standard,” said Lehrach.

Lehrach played a key role in the acquisition of Westerly Hospital by L+M Healthcare. He continues to practice medicine as an emergency department physician at Westerly Hospital. With an MBA from Yale University and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, he is a graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Lehrach also serves on Rhode Island Blood Center’s board.

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Dacey, who joined Kent Hospital in 2000, is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in critical care medicine. He received his undergraduate degree from Providence College, his M.D. from George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and an M.S. in health care management from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed an internal medicine residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and a critical care medicine fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Virginia Burke, J.D., CEO of the Rhode Island Health Care Association, and Amanda Oberlies, R.N., M.S.N., M.B.A, CENP, Ph.D., CEO of the Organization of Nurse Leaders Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut, were appointed to the board for one-year terms.

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