Russell Armistead, CEO UF Health @ JU Public Policy

Russell Armistead, CEO of UF Health, gives a ten minute presentation on his role in providing a 'safety net hospital'. This talk was given at JU Public Policy's Health Care Conference on November 13, 2013.

Link to Armistead's powerpoint presentation.

Armistead refers to UF Health as the "canary in the mineshaft".  The Jacksonville owned UF Health is the hospital with very little cash, only 30 days worth. He see's his role as providing care, irregardless of insurance coverage.




Russ Armistead, CEO, UF Health

Russell Armistead, Jr (Russ) grew up in the small town of Mathews, VA, and started his career in public accounting as a CPA with Ernst & Young in Winston-Salem, NC.  After 6 years in public accounting, he went to work at Wake Forest University School of Medicine (formerly Bowman Gray School of Medicine), where he worked for 24 years, including VP for Health Services Administration of Wake Forest University and Senior Associate Dean for Administrative Services of WFU School of Medicine.

After Wake Forest, he had his own consulting firm, working with academic health centers and hospitals.  During that time, he served dual roles at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, as interim executive director of the MCO Hospitals and vice president for finance, CFO and treasurer.  This work resulted in the hospitals becoming profitable within a year and earned him accolades from the Toledo newspaper and the medical college.After that work and 9 years ago, he was recruited to the UF Health Science Center as Associate VP for finance and planning, working in Gainesville and in Jacksonville.  In January 2013, he was asked to be CEO of UF Health Jacksonville (Shands Jax) when Jim Burkhart resigned to become CEO of Tampa General Hospital.

Russ has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Accounting) from Va. Tech and an MBA from Wake Forest University.
Russ and Susan live in the Peninsula on the South Bank in Jacksonville.