Member News Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 30, 2006
Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center President to Lead IHA Board
Gary Barnett, president and chief executive officer of Sarah Bush
Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon, was elected to serve as chairman of
the Illinois Hospital Association's board of trustees for 2007. Barnett
was elected at the Association's annual meeting held Sept.14-15 in
Galena, Ill.
Long active in the Association, Barnett has been a member of the
IHA Board of Trustees since 2001 and most recently served as the
board's chairman-elect. He has served on the IHA Executive Committee;
the Strategic Planning Committee; the IHA Political Action Committee
board of directors; the Blue Ribbon Panel on Certificate of Need; the
Finance and Audit Committee; the Committee on Association Finance; the
Patient Safety Steering Committee and the Task Force on the Illinois
Department of Public Health Public Disclosure. Barnett succeeds Ray
Grady, president and chief executive officer of Evanston Hospital and
president of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare's Hospital and Clinics
Division. Barnett's one-year term begins on Jan. 1, 2007.
Barnett joined the staff of Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center as the
president and CEO in October 1998. Immediately prior to joining the
Sarah Bush Lincoln, Barnett served as the President/CEO of entral
Kansas Medical Center, a 185-bed general acute care hospital with
facilities in Great Bend and Larned, Kansas. His 30-year health care
career has also included CEO positions with Brighton Medical Center
(since merged with Maine Medical Center) in Portland, Maine and
Northeast Regional Medical Center in Kirksville, Missouri.
The Illinois Hospital Association, with offices in Naperville and
Springfield, is an advocate for more than 200 Illinois hospitals and
the patients and communities they serve.