Big Quality Goals for Cook County Health
By Mark Taylor
Erik Mikaitis, M.D., the recently appointed chief executive officer of Cook County Health (CCH), exudes the quiet confidence of a veteran ship captain who knows the job and the waters. Dr. Mikaitis will need both as he navigates the usual challenges of leading a vast public health and hospital system, along with keen judgment and sage advice as he contends with unexpected, potentially dangerous hidden obstacles like massive threatened federal spending cuts.
Those proposed reductions in Medicaid, public health and disease control funding could forestall plans that he and his team are creating to right the behemoth health system.
To CCH board members and those who know him, Dr. Mikaitis is the right executive for the position: a young but seasoned physician who turns 47 in April and experienced executive deeply immersed in quality improvement, technology and population health with one eye steadied on the future, while the other grapples with the daily realities of managing a $5.14 billion health system.
Most hospital CEOs report to a community board of directors. But as a government-owned health system, CCH leaders also answer collectively and individually to an elected board of 17 Cook County Commissioners.
Dr. Mikaitis seems unfazed by so many probing eyes. He was hired by CCH in 2022 as chief quality officer and in 2023 the board named him interim CEO after the departure of his predecessor, Israel Rocha, who left to assume leadership of Kaiser Permanente’s Mid-Atlantic Region.
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