MaineHealth picks Virginia physician as new CEO, after pandemic pushes back transition
Courtesy / MaineHealth
Dr. Andrew T. Mueller will has been named CEO of MaineHealth, succeeding Bill Caron, who is retiring.
A family physician who recently headed a group of four hospitals in Virginia has been tapped as the next CEO of MaineHealth.
The state’s largest health care system said in a news release Thursday that Dr. Andrew T. Mueller will succeed Bill Caron, who has been a leader of MaineHealth since its founding in 1988. In October 2019 he announced that he would retire at the end of 2020, but postponed the transition because of demands created by the pandemic.
Mueller is expected to start at MaineHealth in late spring, according to the release. On Tuesday, he resigned from his role as president and CEO of Centra Health, a nonprofit health care system in Lynchburg, Va., with 8,500 employees.
Mueller had served in that position since May 2019. Previously, he worked for nearly 13 years at Novant Health, a North Carolina-based system spanning four states and including 15 medical centers and 29,000 employees. Mueller held several leadership roles with Novant, most recently president of its Greater Charlotte market.
His earlier experience includes practicing as a family physician at South Carolina Health Services in Bluffton, S.C., and serving as a staff family physician and flight surgeon with the 437th Medical Group at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina.
Mueller received a medical degree from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in 1996. After joining the Air Force, he completed his residency training at the Malcolm Grow Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where he was chief resident in family medicine.
“The breadth of [Mueller’s] experience was very attractive to us,” said George Isaacson, a member of the MaineHealth board of trustees and chair of its CEO search committee. “He knows what it’s like at the practice level and is an extremely competent executive with experience in both a very large as well as smaller health system. Importantly, he shares our belief in the role health systems can play in community health.”
The search committee, consisting of Isaacon and nine other board members and physicians, began a national recruitment effort in December 2019, spokesman John Porter said. The search, including the use of a consultant and surveys of MaineHealth communities and employees, yielded 10 candidates.
The committee is also looking to find a successor for Rich Petersen, MaineHealth president and CEO of its 637-bed flagship hospital, Maine Medical Center in Portland. Petersen also announced in October 2019 that he would retire, and had planned to do so this June. That transition will now probably occur toward the end of the year, Porter said.
In Thursday's news release, MaineHealth Chairman Greg Dufour acknowledged Caron’s legacy, saying, “Bill has been our leader at MaineHealth since its earliest days, and his vision built a health care system that delivers excellent care, every day, and maintains local health systems that meet the needs of their communities. The board of trustees believes Dr. Mueller will continue that track record of success.”
For his part, Mueller said he was drawn to MaineHealth because of its commitment to patients and communities.
“MaineHealth’s focus on excellent, patient-centered care as well as community wellbeing gives me a chance to lead an organization making a difference in people’s lives every day,” said Mueller. “This is a unique opportunity that was simply too good to pass up.”
Mueller plans to relocate to Maine with his wife, Courtney, and their three daughters.
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