Partners HealthCare names new CEO after merger fails

Photo from Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Still reeling from failed acquisitions and criticism from regulators, Partners HealthCare, has tapped a cardiac surgeon as new CEO.

The board of Boston’s Partners HealthCare has named David Torchiana, MD, as the next president and CEO to replace outgoing leader Gary Gottlieb, MD. The appointment, which will take effect later this year, was announced a week after Partners’ expansion strategy was thrown back to square one thanks to a court’s rejection of a years-long plan to acquire suburban hospitals in tandem with state-mediated reimbursement reforms.

“Dr. Torchiana possesses the instincts and the political savvy to be an outstanding leader for Partners,” said Edward Lawrence, chairman of the Partners HealthCare board and a retired partner at the law firm Ropes & Gray. “He has an appreciation for each institution within the Partners HealthCare system and all the remarkable people who dedicate themselves to the mission.”

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Torchiana is a Harvard Medical School-trained cardiothoracic surgeon and the current chairman and CEO of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, the 2,300-plus physician network of Partners’ founding hospital.

Also known by the nickname “Torch,” he completed a residency at Massachusetts General and in 1989 joined the hospital’s surgery department. In 1998, four years after Partners was founded through the merger of Mass General and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Torchiana became the hospital’s chief of cardiac surgery. In 2003 was named to the CEO of the physicians organization.

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Under Torchiana, in 2006, Mass General launched one of six Medicare-backed care management pilots for high-risk seniors. That program, relying on a team of caregivers managed by a primary care physician, became “the cornerstone of Partners population health management initiative,” the organization said.

“I am looking forward to my new role at Partners HealthCare as its next president and CEO,” Torchiano said.

Gottlieb, a psychiatrist and Harvard Medical School professor, became Partners CEO in 2010 and oversaw a range of clinical and institutional achievements, including an enterprise-wide electronic health record, whole genome sequencing and the Partners Biobank.

His tenure was also marked by a fierce local debate about Partners’ reimbursement advantages. The system came under state investigation at the same that it was trying to acquire the South Shore hospital in Weymouth, the two hospital Hallmark Health System north of Boston and Emerson Hospital in Concord.

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Last year, then attorney general Martha Coakley approved the acquisitions on the condition that Partners keep prices indexed to inflation for six years and cap the size of its physicians groups for five years. Rival health systems such as Beth Israel Deaconess and Tufts Medical Center opposed the agreement, however, and so did the new attorney general, Maura Healey. In early February, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders rejected the agreement on the grounds that it was not in the public interest.

Twitter: @AnthonyBrino