Baystate’s Tolosky to Retire; Keroack Named Successor

SPRINGFIELD — Mark Tolosky will end his tenure as president and CEO of Baystate Health on July 1, 2014, the system’s board of trustees announced Dec. 5. Tolosky, who has served as president and CEO of Baystate Health since 2004, will be succeeded by Dr. Mark Keroack.

For Baystate Health, the move follows an extended and rigorous period of succession planning to ensure a smooth transition for the organization, its patients, and the community.

“It is an extraordinarily difficult decision to give up the privilege of serving so many people in our community and touching so many lives,” said Tolosky, whose decision culminates a longstanding personal and professional plan to transition his leadership of Baystate. “But I’m confident that now is the right time to move on to my next phase, as my Baystate colleagues continue to lead the way in transforming healthcare toward greater quality, accessibility, and affordability.”

The board of trustees unanimously approved the appointment of Keroack, a native of Springfield, to assume the role of president and CEO of Baystate Health next year. As an interim step, on Jan. 1, Keroack will assume the additional title and authority of president and CEO of Baystate Medical Center.

“It is a great honor to be selected as the next leader of this wonderful organization,” said Keroack. “The new healthcare world will require an unprecedented level of connectedness between nurses, doctors, and allied-health professionals; between specialty and primary-care providers; between those who touch our patients and those who support them; between health plan and delivery system; and across all the communities and regions that we serve.

“I am excited to continue this great work, here in the town where I grew up, and across all of Western Mass., to achieve a higher state of caring for the people we serve,” he added.

Tolosky joined Baystate in 1992 as executive vice president of Baystate Health and CEO of Baystate Medical Center. In 2004, he was promoted to president and CEO of Baystate Health. Under Tolosky, Baystate has been named one of the nation’s top 15 integrated health systems, and its hospitals, services, and employees have received multiple prestigious healthcare-quality honors.

“Mark’s vision has been not only to transform the quality of our care, but our presence across the region as well,” said Victor Woolridge, chair of the Baystate Health board of trustees. “In the past 15 years, we have reinvested over $750 million into our communities and dramatically improved the facilities and services available to patients across Western Mass.”

Baystate’s facility investments during Tolosky’s tenure include the $300 million expansion of Baystate Medical Center in 2012, comprising the MassMutual Wing, the Davis Family Heart & Vascular Center, the Harold Grinspoon and Diane Troderman Adult Emergency Department, and the Sadowsky Family Pediatric Emergency Department; recent renovations at Baystate Franklin Medical Center and Baystate Mary Lane Hospital; the construction of the Chestnut Surgery Center, the 3300 Main St. outpatient center, the D’Amour Center for Cancer Care, the Baystate Orthopedic Surgery Center, and the Baystate Children’s Specialty Center, all in Springfield, where a formerly underused stretch of Main Street in the North End is now a burgeoning ‘Medical Mile’; as well as many other upgrades in facilities and clinical capabilities across the Baystate Health system and Western Mass.

Tolosky also has guided Baystate Health to an unprecedented impact on the local economy, now employing about 10,000 people and, according to a recent study, contributing about $2.6 billion in total economic output in Massachusetts and supporting nearly 11,000 households.

After the July transition, Tolosky will assume the title of president emeritus and support his successor as needed. “I look forward to working closely with Dr. Keroack over the next six months to continue to advance relationships critical to the success of our organization and the health of our community, while transitioning the duties of CEO,” said Tolosky.

Keroack returned home in 2011 as president of Baystate Medical Practices. In March 2013, he was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer for Baystate Health. Following a rigorous evaluation, the board of trustees concluded that Keroack‘s leadership skills, character, and what they consider a deep and genuine commitment to patients, physicians, and employees make him the ideal leader going forward.

Speaking on behalf of the board of trustees, Woolridge said, “I am confident that Dr. Keroack is the right leader to continue the tradition of healthcare excellence that has been provided to the people in our communities for the last 128 years. He is well-poised to lead us into the future.”

Prior to joining Baystate Health, Keroack served on the faculty of UMass for 12 years. During that time, he was a busy practitioner focusing on HIV and AIDS care and won five annual teaching awards. He subsequently provided executive leadership at UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester as vice president for Medical Management and, later, as the first executive director of the 700-physician UMass Memorial Medical Group.

He then joined University Health System Consortium (UHC) in Chicago, where he served as senior vice president and chief medical officer. At UHC, a member-owned alliance of 112 academic medical centers, he oversaw programs for clinical and operational performance improvement, faculty group-practice management, patient safety, and accreditation.

Keroack graduated from Amherst College and Harvard Medical School, and received his MPH from Boston University. He trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.