Excela hires new chief operating officer

Sixteen months after a shake-up in the top leadership at Greensburg-based Excela Health, the health care system has a new chief operating officer.

Jeffrey A. Tiesi, a Bethel Park native who was the senior vice president and chief operating officer at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, N.Y., has been hired as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the three-hospital health system. He was COO of the White Plains Hospital since 2015.

Tiesi has broad experience and “a solid track record of helping organizations advance their quality initiatives and improve service to patients,” Excela Health CEO John M. Sphon said in a statement.

Tiesi replaces Sphon, who has been acting chief operating officer since April 2019 when Excela CEO Robert Rogalski resigned, as well as Michael Busch, the chief operating officer. At the time, Excela moved quickly to name Sphon as the acting CEO and COO. By December, Excela had made Sphon the CEO, a position he still holds.

Before taking the job at White Plains Hospital, Tiesi was a system vice president for the seven-hospital Geisinger Health System in Danville from 2002-14. He has held multiple administrative positions following completion of the Management Fellowship Program at Allegheny Health Services in 1989.

The position of chief operating officer in a health care system is “such an important role” in a health care system, especially in times of the covid-19 pandemic, said Patricia Raffaele, chief relationship officer at the Healthcare Council of Western Pennsylvania, a trade association based in Marshall.

The chief operations officer can be responsible for the facilities, the procurement of personal protection equipment, as well as policies and procedures regarding employees and visitors and working with the hospital’s clinical team, Raffaele said. The COO also may be responsible for disaster planning, she noted.

“It can be a very challenging job. It spreads across so many different areas,” Raffaele said.