Children's Medical Center Hires Industry Veteran From Colorado As New CEO

Oct. 02--HARTFORD -- Connecticut Children's Medical Center has hired a veteran children's hospital administrator as its next president and CEO to succeed Martin Gavin, who is retiring.

James E. Shmerling, president and CEO at Children's Hospital, Colorado, for the past seven years, will assume the post in Hartford on Nov. 2.

Shmerling, 61, who was introduced at a news conference Thursday, said all hospitals -- including Connecticut Children's -- are facing challenges within a radically shifting health care industry.

"So where do we fit in that, how do we continue to maintain our services to children in the region?" Shmerling said. "Our academic mission. Our research. How do we support all of those missions and have the requisite resources to do all that well?"

Part of the answer will rest, he said, with developing collaborative relationships with other institutions in the area and working closely with state legislators and the governor.

Shmerling, who holds a doctorate in health administration, has taken on challenges before. As president and CEO at Children's Hospital, Colorado, for the past seven years, he is credited with increasing the hospital's endowment from $250 million to $780 million, relocating to a new campus and renegotiating a joint operating agreement with the University of Colorado.

Shmerling previously headed the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee. Shmerling is a native of Tennessee.

A hospital spokeswoman Thursday could not immediately detail Shmerling's salary.

Shmerling's appointment comes amid two major proposed mergers in the health insurance industry -- Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana -- which could dramatically alter payment frameworks for patient care.

Shmerling says the challenges are daunting, but they also represent an opportunity.

"In my 35 years of working in children's hospitals, this is the most exciting time in health care that I can remember," he said. "When things are going really well, there is some complacency. When things are in turmoil, like they are now, it creates significant opportunities to change how we do things and improve."

Shmerling said Connecticut Children's has the opportunity to lead in the change, rather than react.

"That will be our top priority, how we adjust and adapt and actually create some of those changes in the health care environment," he said.

When asked for specific priorities, Shmerling's sense of humor came through: "My first priority is to get a place to live." His wife, he said, was out looking at places while he was being introduced to the media and hospital staff.

Shmerling, chosen from more than 300 applicants, said he will develop detailed priorities in the next 90 days or so. Certain to be among them, he said, is evaluating whether children and their families can easily gain access to the hospital, either at the main campus in Hartford, or through satellite locations in the suburbs.

He also said he wants the hospital to become a sought-out employer.

"If there is a vacancy in the hospital," Shmerling said, "we'd like to see 100 applicants applying for it because this is the best place to be caring for children. Anyone who has a child who needs to be treated at a hospital, this ought to be the first choice."

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