FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 8, 2002
Contact: Joan Shnipper jshnipper@umm.edu 410-328-6776

UM MEDICAL SYSTEM PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES PLANNED RETIREMENT

Chief Architect of Medical System's Modernization and Growth sets date for June 2004

Morton Rapoport, M.D.

Morton I. Rapoport, M.D., who led the development and successful transformation of a hospital once owned by the state into a world-class, six-hospital system, has announced his intention to retire as president and chief executive officer of the University of Maryland Medical System in June 2004. The announcement was made today at the Medical System's Board of Directors meeting.

"My service as leader of the Medical System has been the most rewarding experience of my career, and I look forward to the next two years as we make continued progress," says Dr. Rapoport.

Dr. Rapoport announced his retirement plans now to allow the University of Maryland Medical System Board of Directors adequate time to select a successor. The Board will form a search committee to identify the next president. The Board committee intends to begin a search later this year and retain a national executive search firm to assist in the process.

"During my remaining tenure, we will continue to focus on strengthening all aspects of our relatively new six-hospital system, including ambitious capital programs at each facility," says Dr. Rapoport. The University of Maryland Medical Center, for example, has a $218 million facilities improvement program under way, the centerpiece of which is a new patient care building on Lombard Street.

"Other top priorities over the next two years are to launch a $100 million capital campaign and to implement the Medical System's strategic plans, which will enable us to continue our progress that began in 1984 when the University of Maryland Medical System was created. We laid a foundation that helped us grow and enhance medical care for Maryland residents over the past two decades, and it will pave our continued growth and success in the future," adds Dr. Rapoport.

"For more than 20 years, Mort Rapoport has leveraged his business acumen to the benefit of our Medical System and the community it serves. His skillful leadership has positioned the Medical System for success in a very difficult health care environment," says John C. Erickson, chairman of the Medical System's Board of Directors and chairman of Erickson Retirement Communities.

"Because of his remarkable record of achievement and unwavering commitment to our institutions, when he steps down as President in 2004, Dr. Rapoport will have a continuing role as a key advisor to the Board on fundraising, governmental relations, and other matters," says Erickson.

Dr. Rapoport, an infectious disease expert who graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and went on to be the school's Senior Associate Dean, was hired in 1982 to head the ailing University of Maryland Hospital. He successfully led the hospital's transformation from a public institution with aging facilities and millions of dollars in annual losses to a modern and financially successful private, non-profit organization.

Dr. Rapoport's early years were spent strengthening University Hospital, now known as the University of Maryland Medical Center. Under his leadership, the facility was consistently profitable, its patient volumes increased dramatically, cutting edge clinical programs began and its facilities underwent more than $750 million of renovations.

Among his greatest achievements have been the completion of a new, high tech $44-million Shock Trauma facility for the state's most severely injured patients and the opening of the Homer Gudelsky clinical tower - a patient-friendly signature building for downtown Baltimore housing most of the institution's intensive care beds.

Under his leadership, the Medical Center, which trains more than half of the state's practicing physicians and other health care professionals, developed dozens of innovative programs to enhance the care and recovery of adults and children. Working in partnership with the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Rapoport helped to foster an institution that has become home to outstanding programs in cancer research and the world's finest organ transplant program.

Improvements in facilities and hiring the best staff could not be accomplished through hospital operations alone. Dr. Rapoport launched the Medical System's first fundraising activities and has tirelessly worked to forge partnerships with corporations, foundations, grateful patients and other donors to raise more than $100 million in private philanthropic gifts.

In 1986, Dr. Rapoport foresaw that rising costs and fierce competition for patients would require expanding the institution's health care delivery capabilities beyond the academic medical center in downtown Baltimore.

Under his guidance, the Medical System has expanded into a regional health system to include five more hospitals: two community hospitals (North Arundel and Maryland General) and three specialty hospitals (Mt. Washington Pediatric, Kernan, and University Specialty Hospital) as well as more than 20 primary and specialty care offices throughout Maryland.

Even with the Medical System's expansion, Dr. Rapoport has never lost sight of the need to improve the local West Side community. He was among a small group of visionary leaders who sparked the revitalization of Baltimore's West Side, which will generate thousands of jobs, create new housing units, as well as dozens of retail and entertainment facilities.

Dr. Rapoport also saw tremendous opportunity to enhance cancer research and provide innovative new treatments with funding from the national Tobacco Restitution Fund. In cooperation with key members of the Medical System Board of Directors, he promoted the idea to Governor Glendening and members of the Maryland General Assembly that tobacco settlement money coming to Maryland should be used to find cures for cancer through research at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center.

Under Dr. Rapoport's leadership, the University of Maryland Medical System has grown to be the fourth largest employer in the Baltimore metropolitan area. The organization has gross patient revenues of $1 billion, 10,000 employees, 1,510 licensed beds, 59,000 admissions, 156,000 emergency room visits, 44,000 inpatient and outpatient surgeries, and 448,000 total days of care. The Medical System now accounts for nearly $1.6 billion in economic activity in Maryland.

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