By Drew Dixon, Contributing Writer
Lawrence Moss, with a career in children’s medicine, arrives this fall to take over Nemours Children’s Health System as president and CEO.
He said he’s eager to get to know Northeast Florida.
“I’ve known about Nemours for a number of years through friends and colleagues who worked there, and I always had a lot of admiration and respect from a distance,” Moss said in an interview.
“It certainly appears to me, from a distance now, that Nemours is a very important organization to Jacksonville and Jacksonville is very important to Nemours,” Moss said.
Moss, 58, said he and his wife, Kris, are looking forward “to getting deeply involved in the community.”
Moss takes over Oct. 1 as president and CEO, succeeding the retiring David Bailey.
Moss brings experience in an extensive career in children’s medicine.
He’s concluding a seven-year stint as surgeon-in-chief at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He’s also a professor of surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus.
Moss has a wide-ranging career in children’s medicine, including pediatric surgery and biomedical research. He’s been instrumental in developing pediatric standards across the nation.
Moss attended medical school at the University of California San Diego. He completed general surgery residency at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.
His career took him to Chicago, where he completed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation-critical care (heart-lung bypass for infants) and pediatric surgery fellowships at Northwestern University.
Moss has a sizable slot to fill at Nemours.
Bailey served as president and CEO for a dozen years. He oversaw the Jacksonville headquarters along Southside Boulevard as well as the clinic facilities in San Marco, Fleming Island and free-standing hospitals in Orlando and Wilmington, Delaware.
Under Bailey’s leadership, revenue increased from $533 million to $1.4 billion, according to a Nemours news release.
Brian Anderson, a member of the Nemours board of directors, said he’s confident Moss will be able to transition into Bailey’s role at the organization.
“He also brings invaluable perspective and expertise in the development and execution of value-based care focused on the overall health of children. We also found in Dr. Moss a physician executive of like-mind who was exactly what Nemours needed to ensure continuity of the care we deliver to children and families, with the passion for furthering our commitment to service as a trusted national resource for children’s health,” Anderson said.
Physicians and medical administrators seemingly have different skill sets, but Moss has experience in both.
“They might require somewhat different activities and sometimes a different skill set, but the fundamental purpose is the same. Everything I’ve done throughout my career has been about helping kids in more expansive ways,” Moss said. “Administration allows the opportunity to influence the system to have a really broad impact on a large number of children.”
Ultimately, Moss said he sees Nemours and children’s medicine as more than a business.
“I believe, as I know Nemours believes, that children’s health is about much more than medical care. Superb medical care is important but so are a host of other issues that are critically important to children’s health — education, freedom from poverty, literacy and the list goes on,” Moss said.
“I look forward to having the organization just build on their success of looking at children’s health comprehensively,” he said.
Moss said it’s likely he’ll return to some academic practice as well when he gets to Jacksonville, after he is acclimated as the health system’s top administrator.