After over 30 years at Ingalls, Kurt Johnson to retire as president
Kurt Johnson (left) with Kenneth S. Polonsky, dean and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Chicago
Kurt Johnson is retiring as president of Ingalls Memorial Hospital, after a nearly 40-year career as a health care administrator and leader who led the transformation of an institution valued by generations of employees, patients and the community. His last day will be June 30, 2018.
Johnson dedicated more than 30 years of his career to Ingalls, joining the organization as vice president for administration in 1987 and later taking on the expanded roles of chief operating officer in 1994, then president and CEO in July 2000. Before Ingalls, Johnson began his career as a hospital administrator for American Medical International, working at hospitals in Florida and California.
“When I joined the Ingalls team in 1987, I set a personal goal of helping to build upon the legacy of industrialist Frederick Ingalls, who opened our hospital in Harvey in 1923 to care for people from all walks of life,” Johnson said. “I am very proud that Ingalls is a regional leader in offering community-based services, especially to those in need.”
Johnson and his leadership team anticipated the evolution of hospitals into expanded outpatient services and continued to transform Ingalls from one hospital in Harvey into a community health system. Under his leadership, Ingalls continued to build a comprehensive ambulatory network in southern Chicago, with outpatient care centers in Tinley Park, Flossmoor, Calumet City, Crestwood and South Holland.
Beginning in 2015, Johnson led Ingalls to pursue a combined integrated health delivery system with the University of Chicago Medicine to enhance care throughout Chicago’s South Side and Southland region. The merger was officially completed in late September 2016. “This partnership underscores our shared values in quality, innovation, superior outcomes and commitment to the communities we serve," Johnson said at the time. "It will enable Ingalls to continue to reinvest in our existing clinical facilities, expand our outpatient services and bring innovative new technologies to patients at a much faster pace
Ingalls and UChicago Medicine have made significant progress toward integration, from improved patient flow and referrals to launching integrated services. That involves programmatic growth in oncology, cardiovascular, psychiatric, orthopedics, ophthalmology and primary services, as well as developing a network and integrated physician model, with more than 200 Ingalls and Ingalls community physicians joining UChicago Medicine’s Care Network. Thanks to the partnership, the academic and community health system now has clinics in Flossmoor for primary care; in Calumet City for joint replacement and other orthopedic services; in Tinley Park for pain, orthopedics, gastroenterology and ophthalmology; and in Harvey for heart failure and cardiac rhythm disorders
“Such growth is helping our patients and the communities we serve to have greater and easier access to a continuum of care and our collective services, and such synergies help to ensure our health system can serve patients and the communities for generations to come,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, dean and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Chicago. “This progress could not have been possible without the partnership and collaboration of Kurt. It has been a pleasure to get to know him as a health care leader committed to serving patients, employees and the community.”
Johnson and Polonsky will be developing an interim leadership plan for Ingalls in the coming weeks.