PeaceHealth names new executive VP

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center has added a new member to its senior leadership team.

Michael Dwyer has been named executive vice president of strategy and community health at PeaceHealth, a not-for-profit health system with 16,000 caregivers serving communities in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Dwyer joins PeaceHealth after 17 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was a managing director in the firm’s health care practice in Los Angeles.

As the first person to hold this newly created position, Dwyer joins a team of senior leaders and the newly designed senior leadership team under PeaceHealth President and CEO Liz Dunne.

According to a news release, the team is charged with building new structures that will help the 125-year-old health system deliver care and health improvement models in a new, forward-thinking way in the communities it serves.

In this role, Dwyer will oversee the system’s strategy, business development, philanthropy, community benefit and health, and strategic joint alliances and health ventures departments. He will report to Dunne, who has called for a shift toward a more community-based model of care since joining the system last year.

“We created this position at PeaceHealth to address a very specific need and we’re thrilled to have found someone whose experience and outlook fills that role so perfectly,” Dunne said. “Michael brings 30 years of experience in healthcare strategy and operations. Having worked with various provider entities across the country, he also brings with him a fresh perspective and new insight that will allow PeaceHealth to pursue stronger, deeper and more meaningful relationships with the communities we are privileged to serve.”

In his role at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dwyer worked with major health care clients across the country, helping them grow and transform to meet the demands of a rapidly changing industry. Previously, Dwyer has held senior and executive level positions in academic and community-based health care provider systems.

“The challenges of caring for patients seamlessly across the continuum of care, be that care preventative, emergent, acute, chronic, rehabilitative or palliative, and in a continuum of settings and locations, will need to be met with creative, effective and quality value-added driven solutions and implementations,” Dwyer said. “It’s going to require innovation and forward thinking in order to keep up, and I am excited to be joining an organization that is so committed to embracing change for the sake of the communities it serves. I feel very blessed and humbled to be part of the future of PeaceHealth.”

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