HCA Midwest Health today announced that Kimberly Megow, MD, MBA, FACHE, FAAP, has been named Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Megow has served as CMO at HCA’s Corpus Christi Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, since 2016. A physician executive with more than a decade of leadership experience, Dr. Megow replaces Dr. Darryl Nelson, who is transitioning to the role of Chief Medical Officer at Centerpoint Medical Center, allowing him to be closer to his passion of patient care and fueling his desire to work with physicians at the patient bedside.
“Dr. Megow comes to us at a key moment of transformative growth in our healthcare system,” says HCA Midwest Health President M.L. Lagarde III. “Her robust clinical strategy experience, business acumen, philosophy of innovation and innate focus on doing the right thing will enhance the overall direction and coordination of medical affairs.”
Trained as a pediatrician, Dr. Megow’s career has been defined by an inspirational personal motto of “do more, make a bigger impact and increase my sphere of influence to make a difference,” so she left practicing medicine one-on-one with patients to learn hospital operations.
“I look forward to joining HCA Midwest Health, which is comprised of exceptional professionals and defined by much success and a very bright future,” Dr. Megow says. “I will continue to build important relationships, moving our quality agenda forward at all levels.”
Prior to her role as CMO in Corpus Christi—where she oversaw medical activities for four acute care hospitals, a behavioral health hospital, a free-standing Emergency Department and multiple outpatient clinics, with a licensed complement of 631 beds and over 600 providers—Dr. Megow was CMO at South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, Georgia. She began her career as a pediatric physician in 1991 and, in 1993, launched a solo, private pediatric practice in Valdosta. For 17 years she cared for a practice of more than 5,000 patients and, in 1999, was the first physician in the area to implement electronic medical records. Dr. Megow served in numerous medical staff leadership positions at South Georgia Medical Center, including Chief of Staff, Chief Medical Information Officer and Chairman and Department of Medicine, among others.
Among her many acclaimed career accomplishments, Dr. Megow regards the most important as “making a positive impact in quality performance knowing that the work translates to saving lives.” A particular clinical program she is proud of is the sepsis initiative she implemented at Corpus Christi Medical Center, which improved sepsis outcomes and bundle compliance from bottom performance in GCD to top performance through establishing hardwired education, tracking and accountability processes. Dr. Megow considers the improvement and ongoing accountability, visibility and transparency in quality as one of the most impactful changes in healthcare, noting that “it’s what’s in my heart and drives me each and every day. To do more and to do better; we owe it to our patients, our physicians, our colleagues and others to continually be transparent with quality metrics.”
Dr. Megow holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology, graduating summa cum laude from Valdosta State College, and a Doctorate in Medicine from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia, where she later completed her residency in the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Megow also earned an MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst in Amherst, Massachusetts with a GPA of 4.0. She is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
For more information on HCA Midwest Health, visit hcamidwest.com.