Rome Memorial Hospital names Lundquist to CEO post

ROME, N.Y. — A man who guided a Hudson Valley health system through a successful affiliation process will serve as the next CEO of Rome Memorial Hospital.

The Rome Memorial board of trustees has selected David Lundquist as the hospital’s next president and CEO. He joins the hospital’s leadership team on Tuesday, the hospital said in a news release.

Lundquist most recently served as CEO of the Health Alliance of Hudson Valley in Kingston. He has also been CEO of hospitals in Oklahoma and New Jersey.

At Rome Memorial, Lundquist follows Darlene Burns, who had been serving as interim president and CEO following the resignation of Basil Ariglio last August.

Ariglio had resigned due to “personal reasons,” Rome Memorial said in an Aug. 20, 2015 news release.

“From among three exceptional candidates, the board selected Dave [Lundquist] because he is a visionary with the experience and qualities needed to bring people together to plan for our future and move the organization forward as we enter a new era of healthcare,” Dr. Chester Patrick, chairman of the Rome Memorial board of directors, said in the release. “He has extensive experience as a trusted strategic thinker leading both small and large organizations through challenging transitions.”

During his time in Kingston, Lundquist navigated three hospitals and two residential centers through a “successful” affiliation and system integration, the release stated.

Rome Memorial had pursued an affiliation agreement with Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, but ended those talks in October 2014.

The hospital says that for its new leader, the challenge of guiding systems through successful transformation to advance quality and growth “gets him up in the morning.”

“I had an engineering professor in college that said there’s no such thing as a perfect system because it will be out of date tomorrow. That’s always stuck with me. We’re always in a state of transition,” said Lundquist. “It’s my job to unite people in pursuit of a common goal and inspire a team that believes that they can accomplish anything.”

Lundquist earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering at the University of Oklahoma and a master of business administration degree from Oklahoma City University, Rome Memorial said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com