Rand O’Leary will step down from his role as president of Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center at the end of this month.
O’Leary is leaving to become president of Henry Ford Health Wyandotte Hospital in his home state of Michigan, according to a statement from Northern Light released Friday. He previously served as senior vice president and chief operating officer at Wyandotte from 2011 to 2014.
O’Leary arrived at EMMC in 2019 and led the hospital through the COVID-19 pandemic. He served on the Maine Hospital Association Board and Public Policy Committee. He also was a member of the Community Health Leadership Board, which advocates for health care in the Bangor region with partner organizations that include Community Health and Counseling, Penobscot Community Health Care and the city of Bangor, among others.
His last day will be March 31. Northern Light Health CEO Tim Dentry will serve as interim president of EMMC beginning April 1 while the company searches for a new president.
“I am grateful for Rand’s leadership and his commitment to our mission,” Dentry said. “His voice and intellect will be greatly missed. I am especially pleased for him though, that he has found a position in his native Michigan. Rand was deeply involved with everyone in moving Eastern Maine Medical Center forward as we continue to heal and regroup after serving Maine in the best way possible during the pandemic.”
The announcement comes two months after Scott Oxley, president of Northern Light Acadia Hospital and senior vice president of Northern Light Health, announced he will step down from his position on May 1.
That leadership change will happen while Acadia Hospital’s Stillwater Avenue campus undergoes an expansion to help address a growing need for psychiatric care that intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those leadership transitions will also come on the heels of more operational changes for Brewer-based Northern Light Health, which boasts 10 hospitals and many facilities throughout Maine.
In January, Northern Light announced a new partnership with Optum, a national health care company, to manage behind-the-scenes administrative functions such as billing and scheduling. Approximately 1,400 Northern Light employees will become Optum employees through the deal, but will remain in Maine and continue serving Northern Light patients, Dentry said.
Other recent money-saving moves include the closure of Eastern Maine Medical Center’s primary care practice in Orono, the closure of an inpatient rehabilitation program at EMMC and a restructuring of the system’s walk-in care clinic in Bangor that will task nurse practitioners and physician assistants, rather than doctors, with providing most care.