After 23 years as CEO of New York’s largest health system, Northwell Health, Michael Dowling is moving on—sort of.
“I’m stepping down, but I’m not stepping away,” he told Healthcare Brew. On Oct. 1, he’ll be succeeded by John D’Angelo, who’s been with the health system for more than 25 years and currently serves as EVP, market president, and chief of integrated operations.
“Michael has done an exceptional job over the last many decades creating a culture within our organization of teamwork, of optimism, and a group that is always striving to do better,” D’Angelo told Healthcare Brew. “This transition is not a revolution—it’s an evolution.”
Dowling said he will stay on to support the system as an advisor, giving special focus to issues including gun violence, mental health, and leadership development.
Rewinding. Dowling helped build Northwell from a small regional operation into a healthcare empire.
He said some of the biggest accomplishments during his tenure include establishing the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine with Hofstra University, creating Northwell’s transplant program, and encouraging research in behavioral science, bioelectronic medicine, cancer, health system science, molecular medicine, and translational research.
One of his proudest accomplishments happened just this month, in fact. Before closing the chapter on his time as CEO, Dowling closed yet another major deal, one he says was eight years in the making.
On May 7, Northwell finalized a 28-hospital merger with Connecticut-based Nuvance Health.
“It’s about being able to provide services in a much broader community, serve a broader catchment area, and integrate with another organization that has a similar mission as ours so that we can collectively improve,” Dowling said.
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Looking forward. D’Angelo will be taking the reins during a precarious time in the healthcare industry as hospitals brace for the potential impacts of tariffs, supply chain issues, proposed Medicaid cuts, and a host of other unknowns.
But D’Angelo and Dowling are confident Northwell can thrive amid uncertainty.
“Every healthcare system knows that we’re going to be facing some headwinds from what’s happening in Washington in a whole variety of arenas, and we have to adapt to it, and we have to deal with it, and at the end of the day, we will have to succeed despite it,” Dowling said.
D’Angelo pointed to the health system’s success in securing the Covid-19 vaccine for its staff during the pandemic. It “wasn’t by accident” that Northwell was the first health system to immunize its frontline workers, he said. “It was based on a foundation we already had as an organization that allowed us to continually adapt and manage whatever challenges were thrown our way,” he said.
Plus, during a time where new, urgent challenges are popping up left and right, what better person to take the reins than a former emergency room physician?
“I feel very confident in making decisions when they need to be made, even if you don’t have all the right information or if the landscape is a little uncertain,” D’Angelo said.