Ed Lovern Appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Piedmont Healthcare

Ed Lovern has been named executive vice president and chief administrative officer of Piedmont Healthcare, effective July 1, 2008. R. Timothy Stack, president and CEO of Piedmont Healthcare, made the announcement.

Lovern has served as president and CEO of Piedmont Mountainside Hospital since August 2004. Previously, he was executive vice president of Corporate Services for Piedmont Healthcare. He joined Piedmont in 2002 and worked on a variety of key growth initiatives. Over the past four years, he has guided Piedmont Mountainside Hospital as it has doubled patient volumes, completed a major expansion, and won prestigious awards, such as the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals’ Small Hospital of the Year designation in 2006. Piedmont Mountainside Hospital also received national recognition for improvements in patient satisfaction and technological advancements during Lovern's tenure.

“Ed is an extraordinary leader and has a unique ability to get things done,” said Stack. “In his tenure at Piedmont Mountainside, he has helped Piedmont establish a footprint of world-class healthcare for the Pickens County community. We now call on his expertise to guide several key strategic business components of Piedmont Healthcare for the benefit of all those we serve.”

Lovern said, “The last four years have been among the most exciting and rewarding of my career. I have been privileged and honored to work with the employees, physicians and volunteers and with this wonderful community.” Lovern was named CEO of the Year by the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals in 2006.

An interim president and CEO for Piedmont Mountainside Hospital, effective July 1, 2008, will be named in the near future.

Before coming to Piedmont in 2002, Lovern was the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Modern Healthcare, a weekly healthcare business magazine. He also served in various executive roles at Borgess Health Alliance, a five-hospital regional healthcare system in Kalamazoo, Mich.

A native of Lynchburg, Va., Lovern holds a bachelor of arts degree from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and a masters in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. He and his wife, Ginny, have two children and currently reside in Marietta.