Lifespan Board of Directors announced today that it has accepted the resignation of President and CEO Timothy J. Babineau, MD, effective May 31, 2022. At the request of the board, Babineau will stay on as a consultant to the system through the end of September. The Board will appoint an interim leader in the coming weeks and will conduct a national search to identify his successor.
“Dr. Babineau has led Lifespan with integrity, vision, and courage for the last decade, particularly during the last two years of the pandemic. Thanks to his leadership, Lifespan has risen to new heights and has become the pre-eminent health system in the state and region. The board of directors owes him a debt of gratitude for his tireless and enthusiastic leadership, and we wish him the very best in whatever comes next,” said Lawrence Aubin, Sr., chairman, Lifespan board of directors.
Babineau first took the helm at Lifespan in August of 2012, following his tenure as President of Rhode Island Hospital, Hasbro Children’s Hospital and The Miriam Hospital. Under Babineau’s leadership Lifespan has become the preferred healthcare system in the state and the region. Lifespan’s employee base has grown 16% and the organization’s total assets have increased from $2.4 billion in 2012 to over $2.9 billion in 2022. Committed to shifting patient volume from high-cost settings to outpatient settings, Babineau led the expansion of ambulatory care practices to strategic locations throughout the state to decompress the hospital campuses and make care more convenient and cost effective for patients, resulting in outpatient visits increasing 116% over the past 10 years.
He is credited with helping build the state’s largest multispecialty physician practice, Lifespan Physician Group, which has nearly 1,300 employees – including 850 providers in more than 20 specialties including primary care, psychiatry and behavioral health, women’s medicine, urgent care, cardiology, gastroenterology, and ophthalmology.
In his ongoing efforts to transform the way care is delivered in the state, last year Babineau led the successful acquisition of Rhode Island’s premier primary care group—Coastal Medical. Under Babineau’s direction, Lifespan redesigned the way care is delivered across the system and at hospitals, clinics, and community practices, to evolve from a hospital system to a healthcare system that puts the patient at the center of the care journey.
“We are very grateful to Dr. Tim Babineau for his extraordinary leadership and exceptional service to Lifespan and the people of Rhode Island. Over the past decade, Dr. Babineau led the way transforming Lifespan into a world class academic health system. We wish him and his family the very best in their next chapter,” said Dr. Ziya L. Gokaslan, a Lifespan board member and Chief of Neurosurgery at Rhode Island and The Miriam hospitals and Director of the Comprehensive Spine Center at Rhode Island Hospital; and Clinical Director of the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute.
Babineau was focused on bringing the best minds in healthcare together to collaborate and share ideas to provide the people of Rhode Island and the region the latest and most comprehensive care. He was instrumental in creating strategic alliances with Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). Both partnerships have created value for patients, Lifespan, and their partner organizations.
Over the past decade Babineau has recruited numerous world-class physicians to lead centers of excellence in areas such as cardiology, cancer, orthopedics, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, anesthesiology, neurology, neurosurgery, pathology, women’s medicine, dermatology, emergency medicine, and psychiatry. Babineau recruited a world-class cadre of some of the best and the brightest to come to Rhode Island and Lifespan, elevating the caliber of care that could be delivered locally—a concept Babineau was passionate about.
A major focus of Babineau has been on the tripartite mission of the hospitals and health systems: clinical excellence, academic rigor, and visionary research. The partnership he fostered with The Warren Alpert Medical School has made a profound impact on all three areas of that mission. Creating closer collaboration with Brown’s medical school and school of public health helped Lifespan recruit the nation’s most eminent physicians to lead its clinical departments, attract the best young physicians to its hospitals, and bring research funding to the state.
“Under Dr. Tim Babineau’s leadership, Lifespan has been a deeply valued partner to Brown through a strong academic affiliation agreement that has deepened over time. Brown and Lifespan are natural partners as organizations committed to the public good, and it has been a pleasure working with Tim over my past decade at Brown to protect and improve the health of the communities we serve. His dedication to elevating the quality of care for patients has been a great asset to Rhode Island, and the role he has played in identifying solutions to confront issues affecting population health — especially throughout the COVID-19 crisis — has demonstrated the immense importance of strong leadership to support the well-being of the people of our state,” said Christina Paxson, President, Brown University.
Under Babineau’s guidance, Lifespan led the healthcare efforts in the state to battle the coronavirus by caring for more than 10,000 covid patients throughout the pandemic. Babineau was not only focused on patient care and safety, but on the safety of employees, working to secure much needed PPE and providing employees with support services to address stress and burnout.
Babineau’s desire to build a culture of philanthropy led to Lifespan hospitals and service lines securing $211 million in financial resources from private foundations, corporations, and individual donors over the past decade. Babineau recently completed the biggest and most successful capital campaign in Lifespan’s history, the Every Child, Every Day campaign in support of Hasbro Children’s Hospital, which raised over $42 million.
“We have been very fortunate to have Dr. Babineau's leadership at Lifespan for the last 10 years. He has been a steadfast champion dedicated to the advancement of healthcare in our community, and we are grateful for all his work on our behalf,” said Dr. Martha Mainiero, Lifespan board member and Medical Director, Anne C. Pappas Center for Breast Imaging.
Babineau’s long-held vision, and what attracted him to Rhode Island, was the promise and opportunity to bring Lifespan, Care New England, and Brown University together to create a Rhode Island-based, integrated academic health system that would improve quality, access, and affordability of healthcare for all Rhode Islanders, a vision that unfortunately did not come to fruition.
“I joined Lifespan because I thought I could make a difference and I was impressed with the compassion, intelligence, and experience of those who work here and the quality of care provided to our patients. My initial impressions of Lifespan and our workforce have been not only validated but exceeded repeatedly over the years. It’s been nearly 10 years since I took this role, and while it has been difficult at times, it has been an extremely rewarding experience,” said Babineau. “It is hard for me to put into words the incredible honor and privilege I have been given over these past several years to lead such an incredible organization. Working with my teams and all of the employees and caregivers at Lifespan, along with the board of directors, has been incredibly gratifying. Despite some recent challenges brought on by the pandemic, Lifespan is well positioned for continued future success on its journey to achieve the vision set forth in Lifespan 2025, our organization’s strategic plan. I am incredibly optimistic about Lifespan’s future and feel gratified to be leaving it on sound footing.”