Hendricks Regional Health CEO leaving for Ascension
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Kevin Speer, the president and CEO of Hendricks Regional Health, one of central Indiana’s largest suburban health systems, has been named to lead Ascension St. Vincent, a larger system that spans much of the state.
Speer will take his new job May 1 with the title of senior vice president and ministry market executive, corporate parent St. Louis-based Ascension announced Monday.
Speer will succeed Jonathan Nalli, who is leaving the Indianapolis-based health system April 28, the company announced last week.
Speer could not be reached Monday evening for comment.
He will take over as Ascension St. Vincent is going through a major restructuring. The system last year closed 11 immediate-care centers and five tiny “neighborhood hospitals” that failed to generate enough patients to support them. The company also closed a critical-access hospital in Bedford.
At the same time, the health system is building a brain and spine hospital and a new women’s hospital at its flagship campus on West 86th Street.
The 22-hospital Indiana system stretches from Anderson to Evansville, and has more than 13,000 employees. It is the largest health system in central Indiana by number of beds, at 1,984.
For Speer, the move will be a homecoming of sorts. He served as general counsel and chief legal officer for St. Vincent Health (the former name of Ascension St. Vincent) from 2004 to 2006 as part of the law firm Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman.
In 2006, Speer joined St. Vincent Health as an associate to serve as system vice president and chief strategy officer, a role he held until 2012. In that capacity, he oversaw the creation of multiple new programs, services and facilities, including St. Vincent Children’s Hospital, renamed Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in 2007.
Speer has served as president and CEO of Hendricks Regional Health since 2012. The system has two acute care hospitals, in Danville and Brownsburg, with a total of 166 staffed beds, along with six outpatient medical centers.
The Hendricks Regional Health Board of Trustees has named Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Operation Officer Yvonne Culpepper as interim president and CEO.
Speer also is executive vice president of the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians and serves on the board of directors of the Indiana Hospital Association and Suburban Health Organization.
Speer is a graduate of Speer University and Valparaiso University School of Law.