MORGANTOWN – WVU Medicine President and CEO Albert Wright was recently name to the 2024 Becker’s Hospital Review list “96 Academic Medical Center CEOs to Know.” (His full entry appears at the end of this article.)
We talked with Wright about the recognition and his leadership of the state’s largest health system.
“That was a nice surprise,” he said.
Becker’s says it formulates its annual list based on nominations and editorial research. Other CEOs on the list hail from Vanderbilt, Boston Medical, Georgetown, UPMC, St. Jude’s Children’s, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, to name a few.
Becker’s says, “Academic medical center CEOs play a crucial role in the current care delivery system. They are dedicated to delivering exceptional patient care, advancing research, and ushering in innovative medical solutions and discoveries.
“The executives who lead academic medical centers and health systems nationwide are responsible for guiding the organizations that provide cutting-edge technologies, groundbreaking research and novel clinical trials.”
Wright didn’t know he was nominated, he said, and received no advance notice. “I kind of find out when it comes out, with everybody else. … My name’s on there as the CEO of the health system but it’s really a recognition of the WVU Medicine Health System when you think about it.”
WVUM is a relatively unique health system, he said. At over $6 billion in assets, it’s among the top 10% of systems. But whereas most systems of this size and scope are in urban settings, WVU Health System is rural.
“We have a very distinct mission to improve the health trajectory of West Virginia,” with its historically challenging healthcare outcomes. “We don’t do that to get on any lists or win any awards.” But it’s nice to be recognized, as an external validation of the system’s work, he said.
And of course, he doesn’t do it alone. The system is spread across the state, he said, so it’s important to have strong leaders at all the hospitals and care sites.
He works to have a “nimble and effective corporate structure,” he said, with five corporate departments: Information Technology, Legal Services, Finance, Human Resources and Compliance.
“We recruit really good CEOs for our hospitals all around the state,” he said, ”and then we give them the autonomy to make decisions and recruit great staff and doctors to put as many services out into the community as we can.”
The list focuses on academic health systems that train new doctors and nurses and dentists. At WVUM, Wright emphasizes strong physician leadership that increasingly recruits doctors all across the state. They’ve recruited more than 1,000 in recent years.
And he makes sure to get out, to walk the halls and meet all the people. “I think it’s very important as the leader of a large organization to still interact with all of our caregivers and stay grounded in what it is we do.”
Being out there helps him get feedback to make real-time improvements, he said. “I pride myself in being approachable to our employees and I hope that they feel that I am.” He sends out an email called “The Wright Stuff,” and replies to what he writes come back directly to him, and he always answers.
Email:dbeard@dominionpost.com
Here is the entry in Becker’s:
Albert Wright Jr., PharmD. President and CEO of West Virginia University Health System and West Virginia University Hospitals (Morgantown).
As president and CEO, Dr. Wright has transformed West Virginia University Health System, moving it from a holding company of five hospitals to a fully integrated network of 24 hospitals and clinics across a four-state region that includes West Virginia, Western Maryland, Eastern Ohio, and Southwest Pennsylvania.
He also significantly expanded the system’s specialty and sub-specialty care in areas such as cancer, heart and vascular, neuroscience and pediatrics. Under his leadership, the system also became West Virginia’s first and only multi-organ transplant center, and in late 2022, the system opened a 150-bed children’s hospital.
Under his leadership, the system is currently West Virginia’s largest network of hospitals, clinics and specialty institutes with more than 3,000 licensed beds, 4,000 providers and 30,000 employees. An 881-bed academic medical center in Morgantown anchors the network. In 2023, the system launched Peak Health, its health insurance company, as the system transition to an integrated delivery and finance system.
