James Davis was placed as the vice president of operations for physician practices and clinical services at Mercyhealth in Rockford, Illinois. Mercyhealth is a regional integrated health system of six hospitals, 89 facilities in 55 communities across southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, a home health/hospice division, and a wholly owned and operated insurance company. It encompasses over 800 employed primary and specialty care physicians who provide over 2.4 million patient visits each year, with an advanced physician partnership model and clinical protocols of care that position it for future success. Mercyhealth has been recognized as one of Becker’s Hospital Review’s “ACOs You Should Know,” has been named to Becker’s Healthcare’s “150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare” list, and has received a variety of awards for innovation.
In his role, James will be responsible for planning, developing, and overseeing overall physician practice clinic operations for the medical practices and for physician services within Mercyhealth’s hospitals located in Rockford, Illinois and the adjacent counties, overseeing quality, compliance, customer relations, financial performance, marketing, growth strategy, physician recruiting, and contracting. He will work in collaboration with the chief medical officer and members of the executive team to implement best-in-class physician practice operations that enhance intended physician engagement/retention/recruitment, excellence in patient satisfaction, and access to services, and achieve financial success in the most cost-effective manner.
James comes to Mercyhealth from LifePoint Health, where he served as the senior director of physician services for the St. Francis region, the second-largest region within LifePoint. In this capacity, he reengaged the physician board, recruited new physicians, created dashboards to help drive operational improvements within the practices, created policies and procedures, and instituted financial acuity and operational standardization in the practices to address significant revenue cycle issues.
Previously, James served as an executive director of operations with BJC Medical Group; as vice president of medical staff services for Memorial Hospital in Belleville, Illinois; as vice president for physician practices and development at Marion General Hospital in Marion, Indiana; and as manager of operations performance improvement for St. Elizabeth Healthcare’s Summit Medical Group in northern Kentucky. Early in his career, James gained experience as the manager of an ambulatory surgery center and as a sergeant in the patient administration division of a 500-bed hospital in the Army Reserves, ultimately being commissioned as an officer and named troop commander.
James holds a bachelor’s degree in health services administration from the University of Kentucky, and an MBA and MHSA from Xavier University. Outside of work, he enjoys international travel and is a professional sports fan. He and his wife are the parents of a young daughter.
Quick Leonard Kieffer’s Roger Quick and Jamie Cassedy led the search to recruit James to Mercyhealth.
