![\"Split](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Leffler-Eappen-composite-1200x800.png\")
Sunny Eappen and Stephen Leffler. Photos by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\nSunny Eappen and Stephen Leffler. Photos by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
Steve Leffler, the president of UVM Medical Center, officially took the reins Wednesday as the new head of the rebranded UVM Health network. The new leadership signals a new vision for the hospital network, he and its board leadership say \u2014 one that emphasizes the hospitals\u2019 work over the network\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Sunny Eappen\u2019s resignation<\/a> as the president and CEO at the network came the same week in mid-September that the state\u2019s main health care regulator, the Green Mountain Care Board, set restrictive budget conditions on UVM Medical Center and its sibling hospitals. Still, Tom Golonka, chair of the network\u2019s board of trustees, said he was surprised by Eappen\u2019s decision to leave.<\/p>\n As he was getting ready for a joint board meeting to discuss the issues that the care board raised during hearings about the network hospitals\u2019 budgets, Golonka received a call from Eappen informing him of his decision, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n READ MORE<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\tby Olivia Gieger<\/a> \u201cThe board didn\u2019t have a chance to talk about it, we had a meeting scheduled the next week,\u201d Golonka said. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t any type of force. We were completely prepared to support him for a period.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Sept. 12 meeting<\/a> of the Green Mountain Care Board, chair Owen Foster laid into the network, which includes the UVM Medical Center in Burlington, Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin, Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, three hospitals in eastern New York state, and a home health and hospice care provider. Foster outlined what he called a \u201ccorporate shell game\u201d of funds moving from the Medical Center\u2019s reserves to the network and its New York hospitals.\u00a0<\/p>\n The regulator\u2019s chair also raised concerns about the high executive compensation and the widening gap between what the network\u2019s leadership made each year and what its lowest paid employees earned \u2014 in 2024, 19 executives brought home a collective $3 million in bonuses<\/a> alone.<\/p>\n Foster called the network both \u201cphysically and spiritually distant\u201d from the needs of Vermonters and of the UVM Medical Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat was hard to hear,\u201d Leffler told VTDigger in an Oct. 10 interview. \u201cIt became clear that the vision needed to evolve and change a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Eappen took that message to heart, both Leffler and Golonka said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAfter some really thoughtful reflection with the network board, [he] agreed that it\u2019d be better to take a shift and for him to step away,\u201d Leffler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sunny believed that his stepping down was the best thing for him to do for the sake of the organization, Golonka said. \u201cI really applaud him for his leadership,\u201d he added. \u201cIt takes a really strong leader to be able to say that, and to envision a future that doesn\u2019t include him.\u201d<\/p>\n Course correction\u00a0<\/p>\n The future that Leffler foresees will be network-lite, with more emphasis on allowing for the autonomy of its hospitals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going to be top down from the network. The network\u2019s kind of in the background,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not the center of the solar system. It\u2019s kind of on the outer fringes,\u201d Leffler explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow we are going to do a bit of course correction,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s a subtle shift, but it\u2019s a giant shift at the same time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Already, the network has rebranded<\/a>, with a new website and logos reading University of Vermont Health, dropping \u201cnetwork\u201d from its name.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The new name echoes the labels used by Dartmouth Health \u2014 a network of six hospitals across New Hampshire and southern Vermont that includes a large academic medical center. It\u2019s a model with more hospital autonomy that Leffler said he is looking to mirror.\u00a0 He described a structure where hospitals and staff on the floor lead decisions and drive change by working primarily with their own boards.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in [saying] the people close to the care know what\u2019s best and know what needs to be done,\u201d Leffler said. \u201cIf the network board is going to hear about six different hospitals, then how much time can you spend on any one issue?\u201d<\/p>\n Previously, though, the network had answered that question by taking a heavier hand in management and governance, in the name of efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n Originally, each hospital board hired and fired its own presidents, and they approved their own budgets that then the network staff and board would review and approve, explained UVM Medical Center Board Chair Jesse Bridges.\u00a0<\/p>\n But as the network started to consolidate systems like their electronic medical records<\/a> and human resources around 2022, the process quickly grew laborious and long. \u201cIt was process for the sake of process,\u201d Bridges said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those adjustments resulted in the current streamlined system, where the network board makes the final fiduciary decisions, with input and recommendations from the partner boards.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, there wasn\u2019t coordination or control,\u201d Golonka, the network board chair, described. \u201cWe were not rowing in the same direction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The challenge now is figuring out a governance structure that keeps all the boats moving in the same direction, while also letting each row on its own. To find that, \u201ceverything can be on the table,\u201d Golonka said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Though the rhetoric and governance around the network may be changing, it\u2019s clear that the network structure of the hospital group is not. Leffler and both board chairs voiced a strong belief in the efficiencies that can come from the larger structure, for things like buying materials in bulk or streamlining HR processes and medical records.\u00a0<\/p>\n Increasing quality\u00a0<\/p>\n At the top of Leffler\u2019s to-do list in the new role will be improving quality of care.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services<\/a> assigns hospitals quality ratings, and the network hospitals\u2019 numbers have dropped since 2022. Leffler is set on earning back UVM\u2019s stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt the very first meeting, we\u2019re getting every quality scorecard from 2025 that we have, and we\u2019re going to go over them. We\u2019re going to make a commitment, all of us, every hospital, every clinic, every office, how we\u2019re going to improve them over (20)26,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n To do so, he wants those on the floor to lead the way, rather than having the network institute top-down changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Improvements to safety for patients and staff, increased access for rural patients, and improved affordability all fall on Leffler\u2019s wishlist of what to address in his new role, he said. UVM Medical Center, where Leffler will remain in charge, is set to continue to play a key role.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re not playing the right role in all of those areas (of affordability and access), because we\u2019re the biggest, everyone is going to be pointing at us saying, \u2018You\u2019re not doing your part,\u2019 \u201d said Bridges, the medical center\u2019s board chair.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bridges cited the network\u2019s recent partnership with Dartmouth Health<\/a> on kidney transplant surgery. After UVM Medical Center averaged about 12 surgeries a year, it simply wasn\u2019t cost effective to continue offering that care, as a state-commissioned consultant\u2019s report on health care costs found<\/a>. The partnership with Dartmouth allows patients to do pre- and post- surgery care in Burlington despite having surgery in the New Hampshire hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cAccess might have to look different in order to get at affordability and quality,\u201d Bridges said, adding that it will require the network to look within its own system while also thinking on broader scales of partnerships at the state and regional levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n Born and raised<\/p>\n Eappen joined the network in 2022 as it was still navigating the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. He came to Vermont after working as an administrator for 14 years at Brigham & Women\u2019s Hospital in Boston. Under his leadership, the network saw more integration of processes and began to operate as an interlocking system, rather than a collection of affiliated hospitals, Leffler and Golonka both echoed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Eappen took over after John Brumstead<\/a> had led the hospital system for over a decade. Brumstead created the network, overseeing the initial effort to join UVM Medical Center with Central Vermont Medical Center<\/a>, in 2011. The partnership grew to encompass six hospitals in the ensuing six years, taking the name University of Vermont Health Network in 2014.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time Sunny was just the right guy to transition from John Brumstead, who was this kind of Vermont icon,\u201d said Betsy Vicencio, the network board\u2019s vice chair.<\/p>\n \u201cSunny just had a different way of trying to invite change and trying to invite new relationships. Clearly some were really successful and some that were maybe less than successful,\u201d she said. \u201cVermont and New York, we don\u2019t necessarily do different as well as other places. We have some cultural limits that are hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Vicencio said she does not think Eappen himself focused or worried about being from outside Vermont, she does suspect that his Boston background contributed to some of the external pressures that ultimately led to his departure.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt is absolutely within the cultural ethos of upstate New York and Vermont to not be as welcoming to people that are not born and raised here,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Leffler, the network is returning to homegrown leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n He grew up in Leicester, Vt., where his parents owned a general store, he said. He completed medical school at the University of Vermont, before returning to the emergency department as a young doctor in 1993. He led the emergency department from 2006 to 2011, worked as the hospital\u2019s chief medical officer, and then became the president of the medical center in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI really care about this region. I care about the medical center. It\u2019s my home. I care about the care that we deliver to my friends, my family, my kids and my grandkids,\u201d Leffler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSteve is Vermont\u2019s beloved son, and he is Vermont\u2019s beloved emergency room doc,\u201d Vicencio said. \u201cHe is rural health care at its finest. He lives and breathes and has grown up in all of the things that are foundational to rural health care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She recalled first meeting Leffler at a trustee event when he first stepped into a leadership role nearly 10 years ago. She began asking him about how the hospital could possibly bring down health care costs and watched Leffler light up with ideas: \u201cHe was super energized, and he had a vision back then.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think that he\u2019s going to come in with this kind of refreshed view of making those particular pieces not just rhetoric, but real,\u201d Vicencio said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bridges, of the medical center board, echoed that: \u201cEven though [Leffler] has been here, it\u2019s not going to be more of the same. It\u2019s actually, I think, a fairly substantial change on the horizon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As part of his board chair role, Bridges does rounds through the hospital with Leffler every month. Through that, he\u2019s come to know Leffler as an \u201chonest broker\u201d and eager listener, he said, having watched Leffler pay considerate attention to any patient or provider who approached him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think part of what makes Steve successful is his willingness to listen, be humble, admit maybe when he said something has come out the wrong way,\u201d Bridges said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunny Eappen and Stephen Leffler. Photos by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger Steve Leffler, the president of UVM Medical Center, officially…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":307565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[155668,210,1141,1142,155669,155670,67,132,155671,68,155672],"class_list":{"0":"post-307564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-green-mountain-care-board","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-stephen-leffler","13":"tag-sunny-eappen","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-university-of-vermont-health-network","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-uvm-medical-center"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115382858020670594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 15, 2025, 5:55 pmSeptember 16, 2025, 12:19 pm\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n