UCI Medical Center CEO Terry Belmont set to retire

By MARLA JO FISHER / STAFF WRITER

The CEO of UC Irvine medical Center, Terry Belmont, said Wednesday he will retire on June 30 after six years in the post.

Belmont, 68, was named CEO of the then-troubled center in 2009, as the staff was moving into a new state-of-the-art hospital in Orange, which replaced one that had been deemed seismically unfit.

“My first day on the job, I came in at 3:30 a.m.,” Belmont recalled in an interview Wednesday. “That was the day we were moving from one hospital to the new one. I wanted to be part of that.”

At the same time, the medical center was also threatened with a loss of federal funding over poor record-keeping, inadequate staffing, broken equipment and allegations that anesthesiologists were falsifying records.

A follow-up inspection found that the hospital had successfully met federal standards to receive money for patient care, which Belmont called “our clean bill of health.”

Belmont is leaving a job with a total compensation package of $821,678, according to a University of California database.

The hospital – which operates the only Level 1 trauma center in Orange County and trains medical students from UC Irvine – has perennially struggled to care for the county’s most indigent patients, while facing a string of issues ranging from employee strikes to an overflowing emergency room.

“Together, we have accomplished a great deal – building a better and more robust health system,” Belmont wrote in a memo to the medical center’s 4,500-member staff Wednesday announcing his retirement. “I am confident that the medical center and clinical enterprise have never been stronger, or more respected, in Orange County and beyond.”

During his tenure, Belmont oversaw expansion of the medical center’s network into surrounding communities, launched a master plan project, approved a patient-centered healing garden and a seven-story clinical lab building, and opened the doors to the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute at UCI.

He said he’s perhaps proudest of the five-year strategic plan for the hospital’s teaching, healing and research mission, which he helped craft and put into effect beginning in 2010.

“We’ve been very intentional about what we needed to do and how to get there,” Belmont said.

UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman lauded Belmont on Wednesday in a memo to staff and said he plans to form a search committee to find his successor.

During the six years with Belmont at the helm, Gillman wrote, “quality of care at the medical center has been outstanding, consistently garnering recognition as one of the nation’s best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.”

Belmont, who has a master’s degree in public health , was previously CEO at Long Beach Memorial and at St. Joseph Medical Center in Orange.

Todd Stenhouse, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which helped employees strike against UCI and other UC Medical Centers in 2013, said he was unaware that Belmont planned to retire.

“But I’m sure he’ll have a nice, soft landing,” he said.

Belmont said he intends to stay in Orange County after he retires but hasn’t solidified his plans.

“I love health care leadership, but I want a little more time to myself,” he said.

[Source]: OC Register