Sparks Health System said Thursday that Tim Schmidt has been appointed as interim chief executive officer after Charles Stewart resigned earlier this week.
Stewart took over in September as CEO for the hospital system that includes Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith and Summit Medical Center in Van Buren.
Schmidt will take over March 20 and will lead the system during a search for a permanent CEO, according to an email from Donna Bragg, the system’s director of marketing and communications. Schmidt has 18 years of experience working in Community Health Systems Inc.-affiliated hospitals and most recently was CEO of Laredo Medical Center in Texas. He has also served as CEO in hospitals in Illinois and New Mexico and has extensive experience in hospital administration.
Bragg declined to comment on the reason for Stewart’s resignation.
Sparks Health System was owned by Florida-based Health Management Associates but was sold to Community Health Systems as part of a $7.6 billion acquisition deal which was first announced in July and closed in late January. The deal includes the assumption of $3.7 million in debt and made Nashville-based Community Health Systems one of the largest publicly traded hospital companies in the U.S., with 206 hospitals in 29 states and about 31,000 licensed beds.
In Arkansas, the acquisition added the 492-bed Sparks Regional Medical Center and Summit Medical Center, a 103-bed acute-care hospital. The two hospitals serve portions of Arkansas and Oklahoma.Community Health Systems already owned Northwest Health System, which operates Northwest Arkansas Medical Center in Bentonville, Northwest Arkansas Medical Center in Springdale and the Willow Creek Women’s Hospital in Johnson.
Before his role as CEO of Sparks Health System, Stewart was the Missouri market chief executive officer for Health Management, running the Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center and Twin Rivers Medical Center in southeast Missouri for two years. He had 30 years of hospital management experience in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and North Carolina.
Stewart replaced Fort Smith native Gary Blan, who took the health system’s top job in March but resigned two months later. He replaced Melody Trimble, who was promoted to president of Health Management’s Southern and Western Group in January 2013. Trimble had served as chief executive for the hospitals since 2009.
Shares of Community Health Systems closed at $36.50, down 85 cents or 2.28 percent, in trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares have traded as low as $36.39 and as high as $51.29 in the past year.
Business, Pages 29 on 03/14/2014