University of Vermont Health on Monday named former emergency room physician Dr. Stephen Leffler as its next chief executive.
Leffler has served as interim CEO since October and succeeds Sunny Eappen, who announced his resignation this fall.
Tom Golonka, chair of the UVM Health board of trustees, called Leffler a steady, proactive and widely trusted leader.
“With health care at a crisis point in Vermont and northern New York — both in terms of access and affordability — the board has concluded that he has the skills and approach necessary to work in collaboration with stakeholders across the health care ecosystem to address those challenges,” Golanka said in a press release.
A Vermont native, Leffler earned his medical degree at the UVM Larner College of Medicine and began his career as an emergency room physician at the UVM Medical Center. He has held various leadership roles at the Burlington hospital, including his current job as president, which he will retain in addition to his CEO duties.
He said in a statement that he was honored and “deeply grateful” for the new opportunity. “This moment demands clear focus on access, affordability and quality,” he said.
Leffler’s ascension comes at a challenging time for UVM Health, which has faced growing scrutiny over its role in driving up health care costs. State regulators have questioned the hospital group’s commitment to reining in spending and have blasted its leadership for using the Burlington hospital’s margins to support the health network’s struggling hospitals in New York.
Leffler has said he plans to give more autonomy to UVM’s individual hospitals and has implemented some changes toward that end. Among them: a rebranding of the group’s websites that included dropping “network” from its name.
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