Ohe promoted from Health Central post

OCOEE  Orlando Health is still a few months from its fourth anniversary of purchasing Health Central Hospital, which has had Greg Ohe as its president for most of that time.

With numerous added accreditations and awards to accompany the hospital's ongoing expansion and plans to open offices on Winter Garden-Vineland Road, the bustle and quality Orlando Health has observed Ohe overseeing has convinced officials he is the ideal candidate to become senior vice president of ambulatory services.

Within the coming months, Ohe will aid the search for his successor as hospital president before completing the transition to his new Orlando Health role.

“As you'll look at the changes that are occurring in health care, more and more services are being moved to the outpatient or ambulatory environment,” Ohe said, “so my new role will be expanding our footprint in the provision of ambulatory services here in the greater Orlando area.”

A bigger transition – that of the entire Health Central Hospital staff to Orlando Health in 2012 – is what Ohe said he has been proudest of in his time at the helm.

And his team continued improving its offerings all along the way through cooperation, he said.

“We continue to be recognized both statewide and nationally for that care we provide here,” Ohe said. “During the same time, we've expanded to new services … toward the end of the year toward the end of the year expanding the number of beds we have here and increasing the size of our emergency room.”

The support from throughout the hospital and organization in his time with Health Central Hospital will be the memory he carries most fondly from about eight years as Health Central's COO and almost four years as president, he said. This includes leadership members working extra hours, board members supporting decisions, medical staff improving care and expanding services and employees embracing their role as health care providers in West Orange County.

“It's gone fast,” Ohe said. “Our community continues to grow, and I think the largest single focus of the new individual will be continuing to collaborate with the various partners we have in the community to improve the health of West Orange.”

The hiring and transition process also will be fast, because Orlando Health has hired a national firm to speed a search that normally takes two to three months, Ohe said.

Even in that relatively small window, he expects to continue seeing the excellence and new technologies his team has become renowned for.

“I look at some of the things we're doing in our critical care area and our (catheter) lab – really phenomenal stuff that we're doing,” he said. “We just had somebody flown in here yesterday from South Lake (Hospital), and we used some new technology in moving clots that were in their lung, and that's not something Health Central thought it was going to do 10 years ago.”

Ohe reiterated how the recognition Health Central has achieved even since just 2012 continues to astound him, adding the establishment of a patient family advisory council among important accomplishments.

“I don't know that I've had a large part to play in the success – I've provided some leadership, some energy; from time to time I move some obstacles,” he said. “But the team really has done the heavy lifting here, and that team will stay in place and continue to provide the care that we provide in West Orange.”

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].