Baptist's first chief medical officer has N.C. background

Quality, patient safety to be among the tasks of doctor now at UCLA

By: Richard Craver | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: August 01, 2009

The chance to help integrate an expanding academic health-care system convinced Dr. Thomas Sibert to leave UCLA and accept the new position of chief medical officer at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

That, along with North Carolina barbecue, Sibert said with a chuckle yesterday.

Sibert, with more than 30 years of experience in the medical profession, also was named as the president of Wake Forest University Physicians. He replaces Dr. Raymond Roy, who served as interim president. Sibert will start both positions Sept. 1.

As chief medical officer, Sibert will be responsible for all quality and patient-safety issues, both inpatient and outpatient.

Sibert has served as an associate vice chancellor at UCLA and as the president of the faculty practice group since 2004. He also was an adjunct professor of psychiatry for the psychiatry department of the medical school.

Sibert said he was attracted foremost by the reorganization of Wake Forest Baptist that began in 2007 and picked up steam in August 2008 with the hiring of Dr. John McConnell as the first chief executive of the system. The job of chief medical officer is a key factor in that reorganization, officials said.

"We are at a pivotal time in health care nationally and in the history of the medical center," Sibert said.

He said that academic health-care systems need to integrate in the way that Wake Forest Baptist is doing, "or they're going to have a much harder time competing in the marketplace and in academics."

"The opportunities that exist here for meeting new challenges with a melding of the best of clinical care, outstanding research and remarkable teaching, I think, are extensive and exciting," he said.

Before going to UCLA, Sibert served six years as the executive vice president for clinical services for the UNC Health Care System and as the medical director and chief executive for UNC Physicians and Associates at UNC Chapel Hill.

Adding to his conflict on whom to pull for during March Madness of the NCAA Tournament, Sibert also has a master's in business administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. "We are very pleased that our national search was successful in identifying and recruiting an individual of the caliber of Tom Sibert and that he has chosen to return to North Carolina to bring his expertise to Wake Forest University Physicians and the medical center overall," McConnell said.

Sibert is the latest management hire made in the Wake Forest Baptist reorganization. In July, Edward Chadwick was hired as chief financial officer and executive vice president for finance for the system -- both new positions. In March, Dr. Frank Torti was hired to the new position of vice president for strategic purposes. Torti took on the post after a nearly yearlong stint with the Food and Drug Administration. He also resumed oversight of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and became the head of the medical school's cancer biology department.

■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com