December 5, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or by email at iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

Stroger Appoints New Chief Operating Officer for Cook County Bureau of Health Services 

David Small brings 35 years of healthcare management and administrative experience in public, private and academic sectors.

See below for high-resolution photos.

Chicago, Illinois – Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger has announced the appointment of David R. Small, MBA, FACHE as the Bureau of Health Service’s Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Small was hired in the through a nationwide search that President Stroger empowered Health Bureau Chief Dr. Robert Simon to undertake. Small replaces Tom Glaser, who previously had served as Cook County’s Chief Financial Officer.

Small has 35 years of healthcare management and administrative experience, gathered in private, academic and public sectors of the industry – including 20 years of experience in public health administration.

Small most recently served as president and chief operating officer of J. Peterson & Associates in Houston, where he managed the day-to-day operations of this nationally recognized health care consulting firm, with a focus on projects that included strategic planning and medical staff development, customer satisfaction improvement strategies, expert witness services, physician joint ventures and clinical and fiscal operations improvement solutions.

“Mr. Small brings a wealth of experience and a profound commitment to public health to this position,” said President Stroger. “His expertise and commitment to helping systems like ours thrive financially is a vital and welcome addition to our Bureau of Health Services team.”

Before joining J. Peterson in 2004, Small ran his own consulting firm on the east coast, with a special focus on strategic growth and operational improvement solutions for healthcare and social service organizations – including offering boards and senior management guidance in the areas of turnaround strategies, ownership acquisition and transfer, medical staff relations, community and legislative advocacy, organized labor relations, and new program development and market increases.

Small began his career as an assistant billing manager at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1973. From 1977 to 1981, he served as director of patient business services at the Connecticut Sinai Corporation and Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, as administrator for patient business services from 1981 to 1984, and as assistant vice president from 1984 to 1988. That year, he joined the Yale University School of Medicine as an administrator, where he led the negotiation of key elements of funding contracts between the university and the state of Connecticut, which brought in $15 million to the university for service, education and research support at the hospital.

In 1994, Small joined the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, first as an administrator and, beginning in 2000, as deputy executive director. His achievements included the securing of contracts with HMO/BMO organizations for managed Medicaid business in the local market; the creation and expansion of ambulatory programs that recorded 40 percent profit in the first two years of operation; work with center faculty to expand by 15 percent in two years the research funding for projects principally sited at the hospital; the securing of a competitively bid performance-based contract of $20 million per annum in state funds for service and academic activities of the hospital; and the lead role in a team effort to effectively lobby local and state elected officials on healthcare issues and funding initiatives.

In 2001, Small joined the County of Monterey in Salinas, California as Chief Executive Officer of Natividad Medical Center, a 165-bed acute care teaching hospital and multi-sited medical center that includes inpatient and ambulatory clinic systems, a skilled nursing facility, medical staff IPA and professional services buildings that are operated as an ‘enterprise fund’ model organization within the county. Patient revenues exceeded $300 million under his leadership, with an overall operating budget of approximately $123 million per year with almost 1,000 full time employees and a 260 member medical staff serving over 400,000 residents county-wide.

“I’m excited and deeply honored to have the opportunity to serve Cook County,” said Small. “For me, public health is one of the most critical areas of endeavor in our nation, and it’s tremendously exciting to have the opportunity to make a positive contribution to one of our country’s most important, innovative and inspiring public health systems.”

Small was awarded a bachelors degree in science from Marquette University in Milwaukee in 1973, where he was enrolled in the university’s pre-med program. He received his masters degree in business administration – with a focus on health administration – in 1981 from the University of New Haven in West Haven, CT.

For more information, contact Ibis Antongiorgi, Press Secretary to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger, at 312-603-0396 or iantongiorgi@cookcountygov.com. 

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