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As a young man living with his family in Levittown, James Harden was once treated for pneumonia at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre. He remembers the experience as fondly as anyone can from a more than weeklong hospital stay.
I remember feeling very safe there and feeling very well taken care of, Harden said of the Catholic Health Services of Long Island facility. My family grew up using Catholic health care services. My brother was hospitalized as a child in the early '60s at St. Francis. And my extended family continues to use the Catholic health care system.
That fondness made it easier for Harden to choose to return to the system as an adult - this time as its chief executive officer - after spending more than 20 years as an executive at Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer center.
On March 15, Harden, currently executive director of Sloan- Kettering's five-site regional network, will succeed Patrick Scollard, who became interim CEO in January 2003.
The job will make him among the most powerful health-care executives on Long Island as the leader of Long Island's second- biggest health-care system. CHS has roughly $1 billion in revenue, which encompasses five hospitals, three nursing homes, a hospice care provider and several community service agencies.
CHS' size is second only to the 18-hospital North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.
Despite his position as commander-in-chief, Harden says he'll be fighting the good fight in the trenches.
I will be out in the field a lot. A very successful businessman told me a desk is a very dangerous place to view the world. And...