University of Colorado Health president: Rulon Stacey

Rulon Stacey, Ph.D., FACHE, is the president of University of Colorado Health, which combines one of the top-performing community health systems in the nation with the highest-ranked academic medical center in the country.

Mr. Stacey joined Poudre Valley Health System (PVHS) in 1996 as the fifth CEO in just four years. In the next 16 years he led the transformation of PVHS into a health system with more than 5,300 employees and two dozen facilities in three states.

During his time at PVHS, Mr. Stacey distinguished himself as a healthcare executive, international speaker and author because of his ability to lead the industry in finding ways to align incentives with regional providers in order to maximize value to patients. These partnerships include nearly 20 joint ventures with physicians in the region and Medical Center of the Rockies, a unique joint ventured regional tertiary referral center between PVHS and Regional West Medical Center, Scottsbluff, Neb. Such joint ventures allowed the health system to focus on quality outcomes while nearly quadrupling the net revenue and net assets of the health system.

In November 2008, Poudre Valley Health System was one of only three organizations and the only healthcare organization in the United States to receive that year’s prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest presidential recognition for performance excellence.

In March 2011, Mr. Stacey was confirmed as 77th chairman of the 38,000-member American College of Healthcare Executives. A native of Provo, Utah, Mr. Stacey holds a bachelor of science in economics and a master’s degree in health administration from Brigham Young University and a doctor of philosophy in public administration from the University of Colorado.

Mr. Stacey received the 1999 Robert S. Hudgens Award from the American College of Healthcare Executives as the “Young Healthcare Executive of the Year.” In 2005, Dr. Stacey was named as Northern Colorado’s Business Leader of the Year by the Fort Collins Coloradoan and Entrepreneur of the Year by the Northern Colorado Business Report. In 2000, the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, named Mr. Stacey a Milstein Scholar for having written that year’s best dissertation.

In August 2011, Modern Healthcare named Dr. Stacey among the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare for 2011. Among others on the prestigious list were President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Poudre Valley Health System was also recognized in 2012 as one of the top 15 health systems in the U.S. by Thomson Reuters. This recognition was in addition to Poudre Valley Hospital being named one of the top 100 hospitals five consecutive years and one of only seven hospitals in the United States to be designated as a Magnet hospital three times.