St. Joseph’s Health CEO, Ruscitto, to retire

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Kathryn Ruscitto, president & CEO at St. Joseph’s Health, has announced her decision to retire at the end of 2016, following six years at the helm.

Ruscitto is St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center’s 13th president and CEO. She replaced Theodore Pasinski on Jan. 1, 2011.

In her time at St. Joseph’s, Ruscitto helped the lead the facility through a multi-year, multi-phase capital project that included a new emergency department; a new 73,000-square-foot surgical suite; and the new Christina M. Nappi Surgical Tower, which the hospital formally opened in September 2014.

Besides the capital project, St. Joseph’s Health in July 2015 formally joined Livonia, Michigan–based Trinity Health, which describes itself as “one of the largest multi-institutional, Catholic health-care delivery systems in the nation.”

St. Joseph’s Health, which is the new name for St. Joseph’s Hospital and its affiliates, transferred the nonprofit sponsorship from the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities to Trinity Health’s Catholic Health Ministries.

Ruscitto says she is “almost at the end of all the goals that I set for myself” since joining St. Joseph’s in 2001.

“I feel the organization has preserved its mission in joining Trinity [Health]; has really begun to develop the right framework for the future and responding to health-care reform, and is able to engage the community in way that is going to help us respond to community needs,” says Ruscitto. She spoke with BJNN on Friday morning.

Ruscitto joined St. Joseph’s in 2001 as senior VP for development and governmental affairs. The hospital named her executive VP in 2009.

In the years before joining St. Joseph’s, Ruscitto served as administrator for human services for Onondaga County in 1988 and oversaw the development of the emergency communications center on Onondaga Hill.

St. Joseph’s will begin a national search for a new president later this month, the hospital said.

The hospital’s local board of trustees and representatives from St. Joseph’s constituent groups, including physicians and nurses, will help lead the search.

Ruscitto will work with the board of trustees and the Trinity leadership team as they search for the next CEO.

She has also offered to remain in her position until a new leader is in place, the hospital said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com