Leadership starts at the top: Thomas Dee and SVHC
VBM
Popular, some say inspirational — and very tall — Thomas A Dee got into the field of hospital administration when academia barely recognized it as a profession. By the time he was 26, he was running two small hospitals in upstate New York. Now at 67 and the height of his career, he runs the tiny juggernaut that is Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) and is currently getting it ready to merge with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) is a nonprofit hospital that serves 70,000 people in Bennington and Windham Counties in Vermont, eastern Rensselaer and Washington Counties in New York, and northern Berkshire County in Massachusetts. Its parent corporation is SVHC. Dee is CEO of both.
“And under that you have different entities,” Dee cheerfully explained. “So we have nursing homes. We have a regional cancer center. We have a foundation dedicated to fundraising. We have a medical group practice.”