Lehigh Valley, Pa. (Aug. 6, 2009) – Joseph G. Felkner has joined Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) as its new chief financial officer (CFO). He replaces Vaughn C. Gower who retired following a 38-year career with the health network.
Felkner was most recently the senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Baptist Health Care in Pensacola, Fla. Before that he was senior vice president of finance at OhioHealth in Columbus, Ohio, and CFO of Grant/Riverside Methodist Hospitals, a member of OhioHealth.  There, he successfully led the financial turnaround of a hospital near bankruptcy and developed process improvement methods to significantly improve its bottom line.
“At a time when significant changes are taking place within the health care system due to pending health care reform and our nation’s financial instability, Joe Felkner has the experience, knowledge and drive to lead our health network forward,” said Elliot J. Sussman, M.D., LVHN’s president and chief executive officer.
The passion of LVHN employees is what solidified Felkner’s decision to join the health network. “It takes passion to be successful,” he said. Felkner’s passion for health care began as a young, athletic boy in Columbus. While being treated at his local hospital for a sports-related injury, he was fascinated by the way patients and families received care. “It caught my attention and became my lifelong passion,” he said.
The experience inspired Felkner to earn his Bachelor’s degree in accounting and Master’s degree in health administration from The Ohio State University. It also served as motivation to overcome the challenges he faced during his nearly 30-year career in health care finance.
Felkner is excited to join an organization that is a leader in discovering ways to manage costs to provide health care of a higher quality and value. That’s the goal of the health network’s System for Partners in Performance Improvement (SPPI), a long-term initiative that empowers employees to constantly improve the way health care is delivered. “If our employees continue to work together to find creative ways to eliminate waste and improve efficiency, Lehigh Valley Health Network will be even more successful in caring for our community,” Felkner said. “You can travel the nation and not find many health networks as special as this.”
Felkner and his wife, Cinda, have three daughters, all of whom either work in health care or are studying to make it a career.
Lehigh Valley Health Network includes three hospital facilities - two in Allentown and one in Bethlehem, Pa.; eight health centers caring for communities in four counties; numerous primary and specialty care physician practices throughout the region; pharmacy, imaging, home health services and lab services; and preferred provider services through Valley Preferred.   Specialty care includes: trauma care at the region’s busiest, most-experienced trauma center treating adults and children, burn care at the regional Burn Center, kidney and pancreas transplants; perinatal/neonatal, cardiac, cancer care , and neurology and complex neurosurgery capabilities including national certification as a Primary Stroke Center.  Lehigh Valley Health Network is Network Cancer Program accredited, one of only 26 in the nation and the highest available from the American College of Surgeons' Commission on Cancer; has been recognized by US News & World Report for 14 consecutive years as one of America’s Best Hospitals and is a national Magnet hospital for excellence in nursing.  Additional information is available at www.lvh.org and by accessing http://www.facebook.com/lvhealthnetwork and www.twitter.com/LVHNnews.
