HARTZ Search Recruits CEO for the University Medical Center New Orleans

October 26, 2022 – Charlotte, NC-based HARTZ Search recently assisted in the recruitment of  Emily Sedgwick as the new president and CEO of the University Medical Center New Orleans, an LCMC Health hospital. “Dr. Sedgwick is an accomplished leader in academic and non-academic medical systems with employed and affiliated physicians,” said Greg Feirn, CEO of LCMC Health, the health system that manages University Medical Center. “Dr. Sedgwick’s 20 years of experience and leadership will help University Medical Center continue to serve as a world-class academic research hospital that trains the next generation of healthcare professionals.”

Dr. Sedgwick joins University Medical Center from her role as executive chief medical officer at the University of Kentucky hospital system, a $2.98 billion organization comprised of four hospitals and over 12,000 employees, serving patients in Kentucky, West Virginia, northern Tennessee, and southern Ohio. While in Kentucky, she led a multidisciplinary team with improving hospital throughput, reducing the inpatient bed turnaround time by 32 percent. In addition, she spearheaded a clinical documentation initiative to improve hospital quality ratings, revenue, and inpatient throughput.

Dr. Sedgwick began her career as a faculty member at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in 2001. She later moved to Houston, TX, where she practiced at Houston Methodist as a diagnostic radiologist. In 2007, she was recruited to Baylor College of Medicine where she led Baylor Clinic’s and Baylor-Harris Health System’s breast imaging programs. Passionate about efficiently delivering patient-centered care, Dr. Sedgwick led a multi-disciplinary team at Baylor to create a same-day breast biopsy program. As a result of that cancer-focused innovation, she was honored as the 2018 Press Ganey Physician of the Year and was featured in Tom Lee’s book, The Good Doctor. In 2017, she became Baylor’s chief quality officer and then moved on to HCA Houston Healthcare as chief medical officer where she was recognized for her operating room performance improvement.

“I am excited to join this team and to work with University Medical Center to realize the vision of becoming a leading world-class academic medical center for exceptional healthcare in Louisiana,” said Dr. Sedgwick. “As a relationship-based leader, I plan on focusing my efforts as CEO on quality care, service growth population health, and making a good hospital even better.”

University Medical Center is an academic medical center with a 446-licensed bed, level I trauma center. It is affiliated with LSU Health New Orleans and Tulane University School of Medicine. The hospital opened in 2015.

Specialist Recruiters

Established in 2017, HARTZ Search is an executive search firm that focuses on the healthcare and higher education sectors. In addition to its headquarters in Charlotte, the firm has regional offices in Dallas and San Diego, CA.

Mike Hartz is president and CEO of the firm. His diverse background in executive and physician search has given him unique experience in working with executives and physicians within the healthcare and higher education industries. During his 15 years in executive search, he has recruited over 200 executives and physicians nationwide. Mr. Hartz has used his background in customer service and business operations as well as his knowledge of national healthcare market trends in recruitment, practice management, and physician services to solidify his track record in recruiting for healthcare systems, facilities, and physician practices ranging in size from small rural to large medical centers.

Healthcare Sector

“I think we will continue to see additional consolidation of systems, M&A activity and hospitals looking to recover from their losses,” Mr. Hartz said. “On the positive side, I think we have seen more collaboration between systems, payors, physicians, GPOs, and competitors during this time to ensure their patients, employees and communities had testing sites available, access to PPE, working hard to reach underserved populations than in recent past. I think we will see organizations working hard to improve messaging to patients, employees and communities and an increased interest in emergency/ disaster preparedness, multiple lines of supply chain, and increased need/ demand for analytics and ways to share the information securely.”

Mr. Hartz said that leaders who understand and demonstrate agility in their decision-making, building teams, leading change, and transparent communication during challenging times will be the clear winners. “I think a visible leader that can inspire continuous improvement, accountability, empathy, dignity, and respect for all wins. A leader that engages all stakeholders to take ownership in the vision of the organization will be highly successful during today’s business climate.”

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media