CHI’s Lofton Named One of the “10 Most Admired CEOs in Healthcare”

Kevin Lofton, the chief executive officer of Catholic Health Initiatives for more than 11 years, has been named one of the “10 Most Admired CEOs in Healthcare” by Becker’s Hospital Review, a national magazine that covers the health care industry.

The magazine cited Lofton and the other nine executives – including Ruth Brinkley, CHI’s senior vice president for operations and president and CEO of KentuckyOne Health -- for their “dedication to the mission of healthcare and the ability to seamlessly protect that mission while dealing with the numerous financial and regulatory challenges that confront their organizations.” The magazine said it selected those top executives for the “Top 10 list” who have the “most noteworthy accomplishments as well as personal magnetism.”

Lofton was cited in particular for leading CHI’s strategic expansion in key markets across the nation, including in Texas, where the organization acquired St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System in Houston and the Lufkin-based Memorial Health System of East Texas. He also was credited with overseeing an ambitious, $1.7 billion bond issue last year that helped to fund a variety a key strategic capabilities, including the OneCare information-technology initiative, insurance products, clinically integrated networks and accountable-care organizations.

Named president and CEO of CHI in August 2003, Lofton has received several accolades recently – including a No. 1 ranking last month in the health care category in the Denver Business Journal’s listing of the area’s top business newsmakers. In August, he was ranked No. 11 in Modern Healthcare magazine’s annual list of “The 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.” It was the highest ranking ever for Lofton, who has appeared on the national magazine’s prestigious listing for 10 consecutive years, including last year, when he was No. 30.

About Catholic Health Initiatives: Catholic Health Initiatives, a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed in 1996 through the consolidation of four Catholic health systems, expresses its mission each day by creating and nurturing healthy communities in the hundreds of sites across the nation where it provides care. One of the nation’s largest health systems, Englewood, Colo.-based CHI operates in 18 states and comprises 96 hospitals, including four academic health centers and teaching hospitals and 26 critical-access facilities; community health-services organizations; accredited nursing colleges; home-health agencies; and other facilities that span the inpatient and outpatient continuum of care. In fiscal year 2014, CHI provided $910 million in charity care and community benefit -- a nearly 20% increase over the previous year -- for programs and services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. Charity care and community benefit reached more than $1.7 billion with the inclusion of the unpaid costs of Medicare. The health system, which generated revenues of almost $13.9 billion in FY14, has total assets of $21.8 billion. Learn more at www.catholichealthinitiatives.org