The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
Darryl Elmouchi
In yet another decisive blow to the leadership of Corewell Health CEO Tina Freese Decker, the hospital system’s more impressively credentialed chief operating officer, Darryl Elmouchi, has resigned.
The announcement comes just days after more than 9,000 nurses at Corewell’s eight Detroit-area hospitals overwhelmingly voted to unionize, a move that most certainly will result in higher wages and safer staffing levels and will force Freese Decker to stop treating nurses and ultimately other medical staff as hired help.
The Teamsters, who organized Corewell’s Detroit area nurses, last Thursday served Corewell with notice that it is seeking voluntary recognition to represent the hospital system’s respiratory therapists in Grand Rapids. Take it as a given that after Corewell’s Detroit area nurses negotiate their first Teamsters contract, Corewell’s nurses in western Michigan will demand the same terms.
Although Freese Decker vowed that Corewell would have dual headquarters in Southfield and Grand Rapids when she took over Beaumont Health two years ago, Corewell’s corporate executives are entirely based in Grand Rapids, where the former Spectrum Health headquarters was located.
Tina Freese Decker
While an unpopular executive with Corewell’s medical staff and widely regarded as Freese Decker’s hatchet man, Elmouchi’s credentials make him considerably more qualified to lead Michigan’s biggest hospital system. According to his bio, Elmouchi holds a medical degree from University of Michigan, is a board-certified interventional cardiologist, and teaches clinical medicine at Michigan State.
Elmouchi, whose spouse is a pediatrician, also holds an MBA from U-M’s Ross School of Business. By comparison, Freese Decker is an empty suit lacking any medical training. Freese Decker’s credentials include a Master of Health Administration and Master of Industrial Engineering from the University of Iowa.
Freese Decker disclosed Elmouchi’s resignation in a memo to staff, saying the decision engulfed her “with both pride and sadness.” Elmouchi accepted an offer to become COO of Providence Health & Services, a large Washington-based hospital system with operations in seven western states.
Freese Decker didn’t disclose Elmouchi’s last day, but an open house “to celebrate him” will be held in Ada, MI, on December 3.
Nancy Susick
Corewell spokesman Mark Geary ignored a request for comment.
Spectrum Health was well regarded until Tina Freese Decker was named CEO in 2018. The hospital system was delivering a quality of patient care that multiple sources told me was far superior typically expected of a regional hospital system of its size.
According to sources, Spectrum’s medical staff opposed Freese Decker being named CEO because she lacked medical credentials and had no experience running a major hospital system. Although an independent search committee had recommended an alternative candidate with a medical degree, Freese Decker inexplicably was named to the top job.
Multiple sources have speculated Freese Decker got the appointment because her father was friends with Spectrum’s former and respected CEO Richard Breon.
From the get-go of Freese Decker’s appointment, Spectrum began losing a coterie of highly regarded medical professionals and other staff, either through resignations or firings, many of them precipitated by Elmouchi. As an example of Elmouchi’s perceived ruthlessness, at the height of the pandemic he forced medical professionals to sign noncompete agreements, knowing they were in a weakened position to fight the move.
Elmouchi was also responsible for the demotion of Nancy Susick, a die-hard Beaumont loyalist under the former leadership of CEO John Fox. Susick was president of Beaumont’s flagship Royal Oak hospital during the Fox era and agreed to oversee Beaumont’s Detroit-area operations on an interim basis after Spectrum took over. Despite Susick's devotion, Elmouchi demoted her to oversee Corewell’s hospital in Troy, a job she held years earlier.
Elmouchi also was named in a lawsuit alleging harassment based on gender and national origin, although a judge issued a summary judgment dismissing some of the claims. I couldn’t immediately determine if and how the lawsuit was resolved. As I previously reported, Black employees at Spectrum after Freese Decker took over said they perceived a hostile environment.
“(Elmouchi) is a nasty piece of work,” said a source who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals. “He left a wake of destruction. No one is going to miss him.”
Elmouchi served as interim chief of Beaumont’s former Detroit area hospitals after Dr. Benjamin Schwartz, a hotshot physician from a major New York hospital system, left after only 13 months on the job, reportedly after clashing with Freese Decker. Schwartz was board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and held a master’s in healthcare management from Harvard.
Freese Decker hailed Schwartz as a “visionary health care leader with a passion for taking health care into the future” when she announced his appointment. The scuttlebutt at the former Beaumont hospitals is that Schwartz received a $20 million golden parachute.
Spokesman Mark Geary has never confirmed or denied that figure.
Schwartz earlier this year was replaced by Lamont Yoder, a registered nurse who previously served as a divisional president of Arizona-based Banner Health. Yoder reports to Elmouchi.
Given Freese Decker’s dismal leadership track record and inability to retain top-tier talent, it will likely be a formidable challenge luring an executive with Elmouchi’s credentials to replace him. The challenge is compounded by the growing labor strife Corewell’s COO will have to deal with, including possibly a crippling nurses’ strike.
Corewell’s treatment of nurses during the recent union organizing drive was despicable, prompting them to file more than 800 complaints with the NLRB alleging unfair labor practices. Little wonder nurses voted overwhelmingly to join the Teamsters. Freese Decker strikes me as a very slow learner who mistakenly believes that her disingenuous references to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and her saccharin-laced memos garner faith and trust in her leadership.
Freese Decker’s sappy schtick won’t play well with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who proudly calls himself S.O.B.
I’m mindful of the warning of former Spectrum CFO Michael Freed, who publicly declared that Freese Decker’s takeover of Beaumont was ill advised.
“I only see the potential for massive financial loss,” Freed said.
Freed warned Spectrum’s directors: “When you sign the documents that will permanently change this region, your signature will forever hold you accountable for the repercussions.”
If I lived in Grand Rapids, I’d be clamoring to hold Spectrum’s former board accountable, and be demanding the immediate firing of Freese Decker to prevent her from causing more harm to a hospital system that was once rightly the pride of western Michigan.
Hard as it is to believe, Freese Decker has caused more harm to Michigan healthcare than former Beaumont CEO John Fox inflicted.
