Blades named CEO of Louisiana Heart Hospital

The Cardiovascular Care Group (CCG) in Nashville, Tenn., has named Steve Blades, MPA, to serve as the interim CEO for the Louisiana Heart Hospital (LHH) in Lacombe, La. 

CCG acquired the hospital last year from the MedCath Corporation. Blades will replace Charles Nasem who has served as CEO for the past nine months and is leaving to pursue a new opportunity in Oklahoma City.

"Our plan is to build delivery systems throughout the country that integrate care across the full continuum of services from prevention to acute care, from surgery to rehabilitation and from diagnosis through disease management," said Harry R. Jacobson, MD, chairman of CCG’s board, in a statement. 

Blades has served as CCG's senior VP for physician services since its founding and has been working full-time at LHH since May. Prior to joining CCG, he was the executive VP and COO of Cardiovascular Care Affiliates. He has worked in healthcare administration for more than 35 years, including more than a decade as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration and the Office of Inspector General. Blades has served as the administrator of an academic family medicine program in North Carolina and as CEO of four cardiology practices in Tennessee, Texas and Washington. He was a co-founder and past-president of the Cardiology Leadership Alliance and is currently president of the Cardiovascular Outpatient Center Alliance.

For more information on Blades, view his articles that previously appeared in Cardiovascular Business:

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