Confirmed: Drs. Dan Varga, Kim Alumbaugh out at KentuckyOne
by Terry Boyd
Two weeks after the University of Louisville and Catholic Health Initiatives/KentuckyOne announced a joint operating agreement, two major players in the first U of L/CHI merger have exited from Kentucky One.
Multiple insiders told Insider Louisville earlier this week that Dr. Dan Varga and his wife, Dr. Kim Alumbaugh, had left KentuckyOne simultaneously effective Monday.
We just got confirmation from CHI spokeswoman Barbara Mackovic:
Dr. Dan Varga made the decision to leave KentuckyOne Health. While his last day with KentuckyOne will be January 4, he is currently taking some time off during the holiday season. We appreciate his tenure with the organization and the contributions he has made during that time. Dr. Varga played a key role in the formation of the two-party merger to form KentuckyOne Health and has been a resource and liaison for KentuckyOne medical staff members. We wish him much success in his career. A national search is underway for Dr. Varga’s successor.
Mackovic stated in an email that she’s awaiting information on Alumbaugh.
Attempts to reach Varga and Alumbaugh directly were unsuccessful.
The news stunned Louisville’s medical community because – as one source noted – “Dan (Varga) was the guy who would be king. And rightfully so.”
Multiple sources told Insider Louisville back in 2010 and 2011 that Varga – an internal medicine physician and a member of the distinguished Varga family, who includes Brown-Forman CEO Paul Varga – was to be CEO of what was referred to internally as Kentucky Statewide Network.
At the time, Varga was St. Joseph Health System chief medical officer. He had previously been chief medical officer at Norton Healthcare, based in Louisville.
KSN would have been the statewide system created by merging Denver-based CHI’s St. Joseph Health System, based in Lexington, with Louisville-based Jewish Hospital & St. Mary Healthcare and University of Louisville Hospital and the University Medical Center.
Combined, the systems would have more than 3,000 physicians and more than 90 locations across Kentucky, with combined annual revenues of more than $2.7 billion.
But the first CHI/U of L Hospital merger proposal died an agonizing death after Kentucky officials nixed it over issues related to Roman Catholic Ethics and Religious Directives. ERDs and church strictures forbid abortion, contraception and living wills, with critics arguing successfully that Catholic orthodoxy would have conflicted with policy at the publicly funded U of L Hospital, a safety net and teaching hospital.
After the KSN merger died Dec. 30, CHI absorbed JHSMH, then forged all the disparate pieces into KentuckyOne last January.
Instead of Varga, though, CHI installed Ruth Brinkley as KentuckyOne CEO, leaving Varga the odd man out, say our sources.
Which leads us to Alumbaugh.
Before the merger – perhaps prematurely – JHSMH acquired Alumbaugh’s 30-physician Total Woman OBGYN practice in August, 2011.
Total Woman is one of several such practices JHSMH packed into three floors of the Jewish Medical Center East building at 4121 Dutchmans Lane in DuPont. While JHSMH doesn’t “own” the group, the practices have to observe Roman Catholic policy on reproductive procedures.
Insiders rate the departure of Varga, though, as the bigger story. During the first merger negotiations, Varga was a crucial part of the CHI negotiating team as well as the liaison between CHI officials and community leaders in Louisville concerned about restrictions on reproductive procedures and people’s end of life intentions.
In November, 2011, multiple sources confirmed to Insider Louisville that Varga held closed-door meetings with various groups such as the Louisville Board of Rabbis and Cantors to assure them Jewish Hospital would essentially remain unaltered by the CHI/JHSMH/U of L Hospital merger into KSN.
Varga’s pitch was that the merger would be equivalent to a giant corporation acquiring different consumer brands, but allowing those brands to retain their public identifies along with more autonomy than under the initial proposal.
More as we know more.
Ruth Brinkley
CEO at KentuckyOne Health
VARGA, DANIEL W
LOUISVILLE, KY 40241 PHYSICIAN 11/19/12 $500 Republican Party of Kentucky (R)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Frieden
Political party Democratic
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/health/16prof.html
Part of the agency’s embrace of Dr. Frieden probably has to do with politics. Despite being in a Republican state, the disease centers’ staff, like much of the public health world, is overwhelmingly Democratic, so employees tend to prefer directors appointed by Democratic presidents.