Temple Health has replaced the longtime CEO and other leaders at Chestnut Hill Hospital
The management changes are part of an effort to improve financial and patient-care performance at the Northwest Philadelphia facility.
Temple University Heath System has replaced the top management at Chestnut Hill Hospital with an interim team tasked with stabilizing financial performance at the Northwest Philadelphia facility, which in January had its first profitable month since Temple and its partners acquired the facility at the beginning of 2023.
The ousted executives are president and chief executive John Cacciamani, vice president of finance Rebecca Gubanich, and chief quality officer Scott Friend.
“New leadership is required because you have to integrate, you have to move at a different pace,” Abhi Rastogi, CEO of Temple University Hospital, Temple’s flagship hospital in North Philadelphia, said in an interview Tuesday.
Temple named Jeremy J. Slaga, Temple’s chief integration officer, to serve as interim CEO of Chestnut Hill Hospital, while the nonprofit health system searches for a permanent replacement for Cacciamani, who had led the hospital for 12 years.
Slaga and other Temple officials have been more active at Chestnut Hill since December and have already made a different in operations there. The typical occupancy rate for the hospital’s inpatient units has risen to 85% from 65%, Rastogi said.
The emergency department is no longer going on divert — a temporary period of not accepting patients — and has been open for 56 days, thanks to efficiency improvements, he said.
Other Temple officials are also involved in the effort to stanch Chestnut Hill’s losses, which amounted to $10 million in the last six months of 2023, following a year of losses under prior ownership. They include Gerald P. Oetzel, Temple Health’s chief financial officer; Carl Sirio, Temple’s chief medical officer; and James L. Helstrom, the chief medical officer of Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Temple owns 60% of Chestnut Hill. Its partners, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Redeemer Health, each own 20%.