A top Kaleida Health executive will serve as interim president of Olean General Hospital and Bradford (Pa.) Regional Medical Center pending the ongoing search for a permanent new president.
Cheryl Klass, executive vice president and chief operating officer who has been with Kaleida for 20 years, will lead Upper Allegheny Health System during the transition. It is expected that a new president of UAHS will be named by the end of the year.
The former president, Dr. Jill Owens of Bradford, announced her resignation in April and, according to an email sent out to community leaders by the Bradford Hospital Foundation on Tuesday, has left Upper Allegany to return to private medical practice.
“We thank Dr. Owens for her service and stepping in at a key time for us,” Dr. Muhammed Javed, chairman of the UAHS Board of Directors, said in the emailed message from Stacy Shotts Williams, executive director of the foundation.
Klass, a 47-year healthcare veteran, served several roles with Kaleida prior to being named COO. She actually retired from Kaleida in 2021 but came back in the spring of 2022 to serve as the interim president of the Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute. Late in 2023, she had announced plans to retire sometime in 2024 — but those plans appear to be put on hold for now as well.
Klass came to Kaleida in 2004 when she was recruited to serve as president of the then Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. It was a homecoming of sorts — she originally launched her nursing career there as a staff registered nurse in 1977.
In December 2011, Klass was appointed senior vice president of operations at Buffalo General Medical Center, which also included opening the Gates VI and HighPointe on Michigan, a project that combined two Kaleida Health long-term care facilities, Deaconess Hospital and Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital Skilled Nursing Facility, into one 300-bed facility.
She also oversaw Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo at that time as well.
Klass earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Niagara University and her Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Previously the system’s chief medical officer, Owens was named UAHS president in May 2022 after a period following the abrupt resignation of a former president. Owens took over during a time of economic instability for Upper Allegheny due to lost revenues and increased expenses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout her tenure as president, she is credited for building a new leadership team that helped lead the healthcare system’s financial and operational turnaround.
Javed, who came on as board chair during Owens’ tenure, said in April that UAHS saw several enhancements under her watch, including nursing and physician recruitment; improvements in quality, patient and employee satisfaction; upgrades to the cardiac catheterization lab at OGH, a wage increase in 2023; the reopening of the fourth floor of The Pavilion at BRMC; and capital improvements at BRMC.
Prior to being named CMO for Upper Allegheny, Owens was the vice president of clinical operations and physician relations and executive director of UAHS’s physician network. She served as acting medical director of Foothills Medical Group and as associate medical director of BRMC. In addition, she operated Bradford Family Medicine Inc., a private family practice, since 2000.
Owens served on multiple committees/boards and occupied leadership roles over the last 20 years, including the UAHS and BRMC board of directors, board quality, chair of the department of family practice, Professional Review Committee and BRMC medical staff president and vice president.