Mary Elizabeth (M.E.) Cleary is the president of MacNeal Hospital. Prior to leading MacNeal, she served as chief financial officer for MacNeal Hospital and Tenet Health's Chicago market region. M.E. has more than 30 years of experience in hospital finance and management. She began her career as chief financial officer for various investor-owned hospital organizations, moving on to serve as regional vice president of finance operations for Essent Healthcare in Nashville, Tennessee before coming to MacNeal. M.E. earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting from Delta State University in Mississippi and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Hospital Finance Management Association and the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Executive Management Team
Loyola Medicine includes Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park and a large ambulatory network in Cook, Will and DuPage counties. Loyola Medicine is a member of Trinity Health, one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic healthcare delivery systems in the nation with 93 hospitals in 22 states and 120 continuing care locations.
John Hart oversees all auditing and compliance functions for Loyola Medicine and Mercy Hospital & Medical Center. A healthcare compliance expert, Mr. Hart previously served as clinical enterprise integrity officer for Oregon Health & Science University, also an academic medical center. Prior to Oregon Health, Hart was responsible for the internal audit, compliance, privacy and security functions of the UNC Health Care system (at the University of North Carolina). He has also worked in this field at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and for private accounting firms. He earned a master’s in public health from the University of North Carolina and is currently licensed as a CPA in Oregon.
David W. Hecht, MD serves as executive vice president for clinical affairs at Loyola University Medical Center and is regional chief medical officer for Loyola Medicine and Mercy Hospital & Medical Center. He is the immediate past chair of the department of medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. A renowned infectious disease clinician and researcher, Dr. Hecht has been a member of the Stritch faculty for more than 20 years and previously served as director of the division of infectious disease, department of medicine. Dr. Hecht earned his medical degree from Stritch, completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and a fellowship in infectious disease and geographic medicine at Tufts University, Boston.
Blaine Petersen serves as chief financial officer of Loyola Medicine and Mercy Hospital & Medical Center. A financial healthcare executive with more than 30 years of leadership experience, he oversees all financial planning, analysis and reporting for the health system. Prior to joining Loyola in 2016, Mr. Petersen served as CFO of St. Alphonsus Health System in Idaho, a four-hospital network that is also a Trinity Health system. Earlier in his career, he worked as vice president of financial services for Catholic Health Initiatives and vice president of network services for Rocky Mountain Health Care, both in Denver, Colorado. Mr. Petersen also has experience as a consultant for a variety of healthcare systems, including Presbyterian Health System, Mercy Medical Center, and Adventist Health System. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from Westminster College, the Gore School of Business, and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Indiana University.
Vicky Piper serves as regional chief human resources officer for Loyola Medicine and Mercy Hospital & Medical Center. Prior to joining Loyola in 2006, Ms. Piper worked in various leadership roles in healthcare, including vice president of human resources at Vanguard Health Systems, West Suburban Health Care, Holy Cross Hospital and Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, and as human resources manager at Advocate Health Care and BroMenn Healthcare. Ms. Piper received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Blackburn College and her master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology from Illinois State University.
Daniel J. Post serves as regional executive vice president, strategy and business development for Loyola Medicine and Mercy Hospital & Medical Center. He is an accomplished healthcare executive with more than 30 years’ experience in program and network development, physician practice management, ambulatory and hospital operations. Mr. Post held responsibility for developing Loyola’s ambulatory network of more than 30 locations and its largest off-campus satellite in Burr Ridge, as well as the implementation of a system-wide electronic medical record. Mr. Post began his career in health care as a respiratory care practitioner and earned both his bachelor of science degree and a master in business administration degree at Loyola University Chicago.
Lori Price joined the organization as president of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in 2013. Previously, Ms. Price was system chief operating officer and then president of St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Plymouth, Indiana, after serving earlier as administrator of the St. Joseph Physician Network. She led the health system’s successful transition to electronic medical records and helped the Plymouth campus become a Top 100 Hospital in the Thomson Reuters rankings. She successfully consolidated two of the system’s three hospitals and helped plan the hospitals’ $355 million replacement facility.
Ms. Price began her career as a medical-surgical nurse and earned a nursing degree from Memorial School of Nursing, a bachelor’s degree from College of St. Francis, and a master’s degree in administration from the University of Notre Dame.
Jill Rappis is responsible for the legal affairs of Loyola Medicine and Mercy Hospital & Medical Center. She serves as secretary to the boards of directors for Loyola Medicine, Loyola University Medical Center and Gottlieb Memorial Hospital. Ms. Rappis began her career at Loyola in 1997 as associate general counsel of the medical center. She earned her bachelor of arts degree in english from the University of Kentucky and her juris doctor degree from Marquette University Law School.
Chad Whelan, MD, serves as president of Loyola University Medical Center. Dr. Whelan joined Loyola in 2014 in the role of chief medical officer of the medical center. He came to Loyola from University of Chicago Hospitals where he served as associate chief medical officer for performance improvement and innovation. He is also the past director in the division of hospital medicine at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine. Dr. Whelan is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and earned his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota Hospital and Clinics.