Lloyd Dean will become the sole CEO of Chicago-based Catholic hospital giant CommonSpirit Health after the organization announced the retirement of co-CEO Kevin Lofton on Wednesday.
Lofton, 65, will retire from the role as of June 30, officials said.
Upon his departure, the longtime executive will have served 17 years as CEO and 22 years as an executive with Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), which merged with Dignity Health last year to form CommonSpirit. Since the merger in February, Lofton and Dean—the former CEO of Dignity—have served as CEOs of the combined health system.
He was also formerly CEO of both Howard University Hospital and UAB Hospital as well as chief operating officer of the UF Health hospital in Jacksonville, Forida. Lofton received a master of health administration degree from the GSU Robinson College of Business in Atlanta and a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the Boston University Questrom School of Business.
Officials said the CommonSpirit board originally created the two-CEO structure to provide successful integration of the systems and did not intend it to be permanent. They said Lofton is announcing his retirement now, as the organization approaches its first anniversary, because "CommonSpirit has a strong foundation, a clear mission and strategy, and a talented leadership team in place."
CommonSpirit posted a $582 million loss last year in the wake of the merger, according to their consolidated financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30. The health system reported a net loss of $290 million on revenue of almost $29 billion. That is down from $1.1 billion in earnings on $29 billion in revenue in fiscal 2019. The health system's operating loss was much higher—the $582 million loss—when taking into account special charges and merger-related costs.
