Alex Valdez leaving as Christus St. Vincent CEO

Alex Valdez is trading his daily commute between his Santa Fe job and his Española home for one that will span the hemisphere.

And in the process, Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center will see its first changeover at the top in nine years, with Chief Operating Officer Bruce Tassin replacing Valdez as chief executive officer effective April 22.

“It’s not really frequent that an organization can develop a CEO internally, and we believe we’ve done that,” said Dave Delgado, president of SVHsupport and a hospital board member.

Valdez, who took over at St. Vincent in 2004, is moving to a newly created position with Christus Health, which became affiliated with Santa Fe’s hospital in 2008. He will be the health system’s vice president of international advocacy.

While Christus already has operations in Mexico, Valdez’s immediate focus will be on meeting with officials in Santiago, Chile, where he said Christus is working out an agreement with Pontificia Universidad Católica. Also, other ventures are being discussed in Peru, he said.

“This will enable me to establish relationships on behalf of Christus with public officials in Santiago and Chile … and introduce Christus Health to the community,” Valdez said. “Currently, it (the university) has a two-hospital system with a number of clinics.” He said Christus will have a 40 percent interest in and will manage those operations.

“Rosetta Stone and I are going to be really good friends over the next month,” Valdez said jokingly, while adding, “but I can hold my own in Spanish.” Noting that his northern New Mexico roots run deep, he added that he does not plan to move his home anywhere else.

Valdez, whose income from the hospital was shown as $480,974 plus $135,216 “from the organization and related organizations” in 2010 federal filings for nonprofits, deflected the question of whether he would get a raise under his new position.

“I have been very well-compensated through the years,” he said.

Tassin has 23 years in hospital administration, including the past five as chief operating officer at Christus St. Vincent. He previously held the same title at Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital in Louisiana.

The hospital board was unanimous in choosing him to take over, said board president Lillian Montoya-Rael. “We’re sort of happy and sad at the same time … but we’re pretty excited for both of them,” she said.

Board vice president Larry Martinez said he made the motion to promote Tassin. “I think we’re extremely lucky to have someone with his skills and perspective,” particularly as the hospital enters a “turbulent period” under the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Martinez said.

Tassin, whose daughter is graduating from St. Michael’s High School, said his family “really fell in love with the community early on.”

“He (Valdez) has built a strong foundation for this organization. … It’s exciting to enhance and develop that vision as we move forward,” he said.

One area the medical system has been pursuing is to assess community health issues and see what additional services or programs are needed; it also is working on a three-year leadership plan, Tassin said.

Focus on employees

For his own part, Tassin said he wants to focus on people within the organization and help them advance, such as two-year nurses who might want to pursue a bachelor’s degree, or entry level service and maintenance workers who want to move up.

“That’s my big focus: to look at how we can grow our own,” he said.

Valdez noted that Tassin will get a chance to choose key members of his executive team, with openings for a chief financial officer, chief medical officer and vice president for information management — plus the position he will vacate.

Asked to review his accomplishments and regrets, Valdez didn’t list any regrets — except perhaps the difficulty in leaving an organization to which he has become attached. He saw his accomplishments as broadening accessibility to medical services after he came on in 2004, when there weren’t enough general or orthopedic surgeons in the community, he said. The affiliation he helped work out with Christus Health helped St. Vincent grow into a regional health care system, he said.

“I think we’re well-positioned today as an organization to take on the challenges for the future,” Valdez said.

Valdez has been the face of Santa Fe’s largest private employer on many public issues, including disputes with the nurses’ union, the hospital’s merger with the Roman Catholic Christus organization and funding debates over Santa Fe County’s financial support for indigent care.

In the past five years, Christus St. Vincent took over Physicians Medical Center, a small hospital, and developed partnerships with New Mexico Cancer Care Associates and the New Mexico Heart Institute. The Christus St. Vincent Medical Group includes 106 medical professionals.

Through that time, though, relations had been fractious with the local union, as some nurses and technical workers have complained that staffing cutbacks and other issues have made their jobs more difficult and reduced the quality of patient care.