Dr. James LaBelle Named Chief Medical Officer for Scripps Health

Editor's Note: Scripps Health released the following announcement on Sept. 11, 2012.

Scripps Health has selected James LaBelle, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer and Corporate Senior Vice President. Dr. LaBelle assumes his new position Jan. 1, 2013, succeeding Brent Eastman, M.D., who will retire in at the end of the year.

Dr. LaBelle currently serves as corporate vice president for quality, medical management and physician co-management at Scripps. In this role, he has led Scripps’ work with physicians to reduce non-value-added variation and begin the process to align inpatient and outpatient clinical care. Through this role and as chairman of the board for ScrippsCare, a non-profit Scripps subsidiary governed by Scripps and seven of its affiliated medical groups, Dr. LaBelle is engaging physicians and staff systemwide in the redesign of clinical care processes and development of population health management models that will best position Scripps for success under health care reform.

In his new role as chief medical officer, Dr. LaBelle will continue to lead these efforts, as well as quality, disease management, nursing operations, Scripps Health’s clinical research division, graduate medical education and medical fellowship programs.

“Dr. LaBelle is the right person at the right time to fill this critical position in our organization,” said Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps. “Before joining the administrative team at Scripps, he had a distinguished career as a physician and has earned the respect of his peers, patients and staff.  As we work in coming years to further transform clinical care and fully integrate our ambulatory and inpatient care environments, Dr. LaBelle can continue to build on the foundation he’s already established.”

In his career at Scripps, Dr. LaBelle has been medical director of emergency services and clinical quality at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, has served as that hospital’s chief of staff, and has held numerous other leadership positions.

Dr. LaBelle has practiced emergency medicine for more than 25 years. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American College of Physician Executives.

He is a co-founder and past president and CEO of Connect the Docs Multi-Specialty Network, Inc., a 180-member Independent Physician Association, as well as a co-founder and past chairman of Connect the Docs Medical Management, LLC.

Dr. LaBelle earned his medical degree at the University of Washington and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He also holds a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering and a health care executive master’s degree in business administration from the University of California, Irvine.