Nemours Foundation President & CEO David J. Bailey, MD, MBA, was named one of Modern Healthcare Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Physician Executives and Leaders. Bailey leads Nemours Children’s Health System, an integrated children’s health system headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla. that operates two free-standing hospitals and 45 pediatric and specialty care locations in four states.
Nemours operates a child health system in Delaware and Mid-Atlantic.
The only pediatrician and children’s health care CEO on the 2014 list, Dr. Bailey’s vision calls for transforming the nation’s health focuses on instilling healthy behaviors early in a child’s development, emphasizing prevention and improving literacy in childhood, all of which are important predictors of future adult health, according to a Nemours release. He believes these actions would dramatically improve the nation’s health by reducing the burden of chronic disease as well as significantly lowering the overall cost of health care.
Under his leadership, Nemours has evolved into a resource for children’s health. In addition to focusing greater attention on population health and children’s health advocacy, in the past three years Nemours has invested more than $600 million in capital improvements to meet the health care needs of children. This includes opening the 97-bed Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Fla., in 2012 and the expansion of the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., set to open in the fall of 2014. In total these projects represent more than 1.1 million square feet of new care space. Nemours is among a small group of U.S. health systems which have achieved HIMSS Stage 7 for both hospitals and ambulatory service sites.
A pediatric gastroenterologist by training, Dr. Bailey completed an internship and residency program in Pediatrics at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. His Army Medical Corps service included duty as a pediatrician at Fort Rucker, Alabama; a clinical professor appointment to the Uniformed Services Medical School as director for medical student pediatric clinical training; completion of a fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology at the University of Florida; and appointment as Chief of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. After leaving the military in 1987, Dr. Bailey established the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando.
In 1997, he joined Nemours when the Nemours Children’s Clinic in Orlando opened. In 2003, he was appointed the first Chief Operating Officer of Nemours with responsibility for day-to-day operations for all Nemours entities in the Delaware Valley and Florida. In 2006, he was named President and Chief Executive Officer of The Nemours Foundation by the Board of Directors.
