Hospitals

MetroHealth COO departs; Dr. Ed Hills named interim ops chief

Angeline M. Marano has left her position as chief operating officer for the MetroHealth System “to pursue other opportunities” less than a year after being appointed as the Cuyahoga County hospital system’s first COO in at least a decade. MetroHealth’s Department of Dentistry chair, Dr. Edward R. Hills, will serve as interim operating chief, said […]

Angeline M. Marano has left her position as chief operating officer for the MetroHealth System “to pursue other opportunities” less than a year after being appointed as the Cuyahoga County hospital system’s first COO in at least a decade.

MetroHealth’s Department of Dentistry chair, Dr. Edward R. Hills, will serve as interim operating chief, said MetroHealth Chief Executive Officer Mark Moran in an announcement to employees on Monday.

“As MetroHealth chief operating officer, Angie has led the clinical operations of the system through a significant reorganization over the past year,” Moran said in the announcement. “Angie brought a strong focus on patient service and a commitment to quality to our management team. I have enjoyed working with Angie, and will miss her positive attitude and experienced counsel.”

Marano was the senior operating officer at University Hospitals in Cleveland for seven years before leaving in 2004 to become the senior vice president and chief operating officer at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Vermont. She was named MetroHealth’s COO in May 2009.

Hills has nearly two decades of medical and administrative leadership at MetroHealth and in the Ohio dental community.

He has been at MetroHealth for 17 years, chairing the Department of Dentistry since 1997. “Under his leadership, the department has quadrupled the number of patient visits (from 10,000 to more than 40,000 per year) and doubled its locations, with dental services available at four sites,” Moran said in his announcement.

Hills launched the division of pediatric dentistry and developed a multi-specialty faculty at MetroHealth. He also is a longtime member of the Faculty By-Laws Committee, serving as chair for a year. And he has been active on the Ohio State Dental Board for more than a decade, serving as its president for three years and chief enforcement officer for five years.

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During MetroHealth’s 2009 financial turnaround, Hills played a key role as the physician leader in its Revenue Cycle Campaign–a system-wide development effort to enhance revenue and working capital levels.

“Dr. Hills was at the forefront of the whole transformational process because  he was the clinical head of the revenue cycle campaign,” said Eileen Korey, vice president of communications for MetroHealth. “That campaign was the principal transformative process that got us back in the black and got us into the position of being able to generate enough surplus to reinvest in the system.”

Since last year’s reorganization into patient care units, Hills has been the executive director of the System Services unit, overseeing operations in radiology, pathology, pharmacy and nutrition services. “Dr. Hills really understands that process of change,” Korey said. “As a veteran on the faculty bylaws committee, he’s a very familiar figure among the medical staff here, and knows how to grow and expand a product line, like dentistry.”

Hills will report to Moran, and the patient care unit executive directors and vice presidents of nursing, medical operations and system services will report to Hills.