Updated at 2:19 p.m.
One of the state’s most experienced hands in health policy is leaving the University of Vermont Health Network next month.
Chief operating officer Al Gobeille plans to vacate the position in late May, the health network announced in a press release Friday morning. He served in that role for four years, following a three-year stint as secretary of human services in Gov. Phil Scott’s administration.
Gobeille called the job at the state’s largest health care provider “the challenge of a lifetime.” In the press release, new chief executive officer Sunny Eappen said Gobeille was leaving “to pursue his other business interests.”
With his wife Kim, Gobeille co-owns Gobeille Hospitality Group, which operates two lakeshore restaurants in Burlington, Shanty on the Shore and Burlington Bay Market & Cafe, as well as a catering business. That will be his primary focus when he leaves the network, according to a network spokesperson.
Eappen took the helm in late November 2022 after John Brumsted, who headed the network since its formation in 2011, retired in September. At the time, Eappen said in a written statement, Gobeille “graciously offered to stay on for the transition,” which both men feel “is well underway,” according to the new CEO.
“I know Al will always be available to me for advice and counsel as we continue the work ahead,” Eappen said in the statement.
The health network encompasses six hospitals, three of them in New York state, as well as a physicians group and a home health and hospice provider. It has over 15,000 employees and an annual operating budget of around $2.5 billion.
The Vermont hospitals it operates are University of Vermont Medical Center, with buildings and offices in and around Burlington, Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin and Porter Medical Center in Middlebury.
The release praised Gobeille’s leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the network’s recovery from a cyberattack in the fall of 2020. It credited him with facilitating the expansion of the network’s pharmacy operations and in the development of a building to house employees in South Burlington, which celebrated a ribbon cutting Thursday.
Gobeille was a founding member of the Green Mountain Care Board, which formed in 2011 to help implement the state’s ambitious plans for healthcare payment reform. The body also took over the state’s regulation of hospitals, health insurance premiums and accountable care organizations. He served as its chair between 2013 and 2016.
Near the end of Gobeille’s time on the board, it co-signed the state’s first “all-payer” payment reform model agreement. The contract with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services allows the state to contract with one or more accountable care organizations to bundle a portion of payments from Medicare, Medicaid and private payers and deliver them to providers with incentives for care quality and health outcomes. The state is currently negotiating a revised new agreement to go into effect in 2025.
In recent years, Gobeille advocated strongly in front of the board for the hospital network, arguing that its annual budgetary reviews were constraining finances in ways that were threatening the network’s long-term stability.
UVM Health Network plans to begin a nationwide search for a new COO, Eappen said.
