Susan Mooney
Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital President and CEO Susan Mooney plans to retire as soon as her replacement is found, though the process is expected to take months, a hospital spokeswoman said Monday, April 14.
Mooney has been APD’s top leader since 2012 and at the hospital since 2000. Previously, she was an obstetrician and gynecologist and later director of quality and chief medical officer.
Mooney announced her plans to retire in early April, a Dartmouth Health spokesperson said via email Monday. The hospital’s board of trustees and Dartmouth Health officials will conduct a national search to replace Mooney.
Mooney plans to stay in her role until a replacement is found.
A request for an interview with Mooney on Monday was declined by the spokeswoman for Dartmouth Health, who also declined to provide a statement about Mooney’s 25-year tenure at APD.
The search to find her replacement will be launched and conducted “over the next few months.”
Mooney helped APD navigate through several major changes. When she transitioned into her current role in late 2012, the Valley News reported it as a “particularly critical moment in (APD’s) 80-year history.”
The hospital was undergoing a major renovation to update its facilities while also facing uncertainty about its financial future. When Mooney assumed her leadership role, she told the Valley News a key goal was continuing to provide low-cost health care; at the time, APD provided the lowest-cost care in the state. In 2014 when APD and Dartmouth Health announced a potential merger, the conversations came amid continued uncertainty about APD’s future as a critical access hospital. The two entities said the relationship would strengthen APDs finances and allow the institutions to share resources.
“The reality is that we need to wrestle with the fact that we have this fragmented, disconnected, inefficient health care system and I believe that we’ve got to organize our care around doing what’s best for patients. And what’s best for patients is to do it together,” Mooney told the Valley News in 2014.
In 2016, APD joined Dartmouth Health after over two years of negotiations, and Mooney stayed on as CEO and president of the hospital, even after DH contractually earned the power to appoint and remove APD’s CEO in 2018.
In 2018, the hospital closed its birthing center and merged birthing services with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
Most of these changes were intended to help shore up staffing and financial issues at APD.
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