Roper St. Francis has chosen Lorraine Lutton, president of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida, as its next president and CEO, the first woman to lead the Charleston health system.
Lutton will start Nov. 14, Roper St. Francis announced Monday. She succeeds David Dunlap, who said in February that he planned to retire after a 45-year career in health care, 13 of them leading Roper St. Francis.
“Dozens of leaders from across the country applied, and Lorraine was the clear and unanimous candidate,” Dunlap said in the announcement.
Lutton, 50, has spent 24 years with BayCare Health System, a Tampa-based group of 14 not-for-profit hospitals with more than 25,000 employees, according to Roper St. Francis. She has been president of St. Joseph’s, BayCare’s 529-bed flagship, since 2013, The Post and Courier reported, and before that was the hospital’s chief operating officer. Roper said she oversaw a $114 million construction project there.
“The tremendous history and growth of Roper St. Francis coupled with its hallmark of compassionate, excellent care made this a rare and extraordinary leadership opportunity,” Lutton said.
She told The Post and Courier she has no plans for immediate changes and will start by learning “to appreciate what’s been working.” She named access to care as an early challenge, pointing to the $113 million, 50-bed hospital Roper St. Francis plans to open at Carnes Crossroads by 2019.
“Clearly that’s a priority,” she said. Longer term, she said, “financial sustainability” will be a big issue for hospitals, especially in states such as South Carolina that have not expanded Medicaid.
The board and Carolinas HealthCare System leadership endorsed her selection after a national search, Roper St. Francis said.
The system has 657 beds in three hospitals, Roper Hospital, Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital and Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital, along with more than 90 facilities and doctors’ offices and more than 5,500 employees, according to the announcement.
