Randall Kelley Leaves Top Job at Inova Loudoun Hospital

Randy Kelley is leaving the CEO office at Inova Loudoun Hospital to take over as president and Chief Executive Officer of CaroMont Health, a private non-profit health care system in Gastonia, North Carolina. He started on July 31, 2006 and will leave his Loudoun office on Dec. 21 and start at CaroMont in early 2012.

“It was very hard to make a decision to leave here,” Kelley said.

His daughter and son-in-law live in Knoxville, Tenn., a three-hour drive from Gastonia, Kelley said, and that played a role in his decision to take the North Carolina position.

In addition, “It’s an independent hospital system, and it intends to remain fiercely independent. It’s an amazing organization that has done so many things well and is positioned for tremendous success. It’s a health system delivering amazing low cost, high quality health care.”

CaroMont received the Midas National Platinum Award for Excellence in Patient Outcomes, was named one of Thomson Reuters’ Top 100 Hospitals, and is ranked in the top 50 in the nation for cardiac care.

Spurgeon Mackie, chairman of CaroMont’s board of directors, quoted in the Gaston Gazette, said “[Kelley] embraces the vision, mission and strategic plan of CaroMont and has a demonstrated track record in working with employees, physicians and community leaders to create a strong and vibrant health system that enhances the health of the communities we serve.”

Kelley replaces Valinda Rutledge, who left CaroMont in May of this year to be director of a new federal health care innovation center in Washington, D.C., the Patient Care Models Group at the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

CaroMont is the parent company of Gaston Memorial Hospital in Gastonia, N.C., just across the river from Charlotte, and has more than 3,800 employees including 452 physicians, 38 medical practices and eight affiliates, including Gaston Hospice and Courtland Terrace.

Kelley began is hospital career as a University of Michigan business intern at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit 32 years ago. He has a master’s degree in health care administration.

Within a week of taking over the top job at Inova Loudoun Hospital, Kelley was faced with HCA’s bid to build a for-profit hospital in Broadlands. “That certainly consumed the team’s work here from the very beginning.”

Looking back over the five years, Kelley points with pride to the hospital’s recent redesignation for Magnet status (nursing excellence), great improvement in both patient satisfaction and employee engagement, good collaboration with the medical staff and planning for the future.

Under his leadership, Inova Loudoun Hospital developed out a master facility plan for the Lansdowne campus, announced the Ashburn Healthplex, and opened health care facilities in Arcola and Purcellville. The next, in Lovettsville, will open in 2012. A major renovation and expansion of the Leesburg campus is under way.

The most important aspect of Inova Loudoun Hospital, Kelley said, is not the facilities and the equipment. It’s the people, “who stand up to do the right thing when the need arises.”