Under Tabb’s leadership, the system ran a $100 million operating gain last year — the first one in the black in four years. In an employee survey last spring, majority of respondents said they were happy working for the organization and would recommend the workplace. Beth Israel has also added dozens of primary care clinicians in the past year, including many who Tabb said sought to come from rival Mass General Brigham.
“As I talk to people, they want to understand, ’If things are so wonderful, why now?’ In my mind the answer is a simple one: It’s because things are good,” Tabb said. “It’s because we have real momentum, it’s because we’re stable financially. We have the partnerships we need, and there is work to do, but they are solidified for the coming years. And because we have really good people that I feel more than comfortable, I feel good, saying, ‘It’s time for the next person.’”
By the time Tabb steps down from the role next year, he will have been leading the health system for 15 years, making him the longest-serving CEO of a Massachusetts hospital network.
Tabb’s next steps are unclear, though he said he isn’t interested in running another large-scale organization or health system.
“I don’t intend to go run another hospital or health system,” Tabb said. “If I wanted to do that, I already run [an institution] that I love, and one that I think that is the best one out there.”
Regarding what his next chapter is, he added: “I genuinely don’t know.”
Whatever comes next will add to an already lengthy resume. Raised in Berkeley, California, Tabb emigrated to Israel at age 18, where he served in the Israel Defense Forces. After receiving his undergraduate and medical degrees from Hebrew University, Tabb completed his residency in internal medicine at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. A former leader at Stanford Hospital & Clinics in California, Tabb joined Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as chief executive in 2011.
Ann-Ellen Hornidge, chair of the board of trustees for Beth Israel Lahey Health, said Tabb’s departure will be a “huge loss” for the organization and for her personally.
“It’s a hard job. And the pandemic, each one of those years was like in dog years,” Hornidge said. “I understand why he wants to step down.”
The health system plans to conduct a national search for Tabb’s replacement over the next eight to 10 months, though Hornidge said she anticipated there would be strong internal candidates as well.
While Tabb’s successor will be chosen by the full board, Hornidge, a retired partner at the law firm Mintz Levin, said she will co-lead the search process with board vice chair Ron O’Hanley, the CEO of State Street Corporation.
“During times of crisis, from the Marathon bombings to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kevin has always stepped up to support the people of Massachusetts,” said Governor Maura Healey. “Kevin’s leadership has strengthened health care across our state, and I’m grateful for his partnership and service.”
The organization Tabb leaves for his successor is drastically different from the one he inherited.
When Tabb started, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was a smaller system, consisting just of the downtown Boston campus and its Needham community hospital. The system soon expanded, adding community hospitals in Milton and Plymouth.
In 2019, the organization undertook its biggest expansion yet, merging with Lahey Health and a cohort of community hospitals, including the flagship Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, to become the Beth Israel Lahey Health system.
Bringing two organizations together is never an easy feat. But the work that lay ahead of the combined entity was perhaps even more challenging, due in part to a seven-year price cap imposed by the state on the system that would hold reimbursements in check — a requirement not borne by any other health system in the market.
Besides the structure and newness of the deal, the newly-formed organization was put to the test the following year, with the onset of the pandemic, including a deluge of critical patients, concerns about lack of personal protective equipment, and large-scale burnout among clinicians.
In an email to employees, Hornidge recalled Tabb’s dedication to his clinicians’ safety during that time and to acquiring whatever resources they needed.
“In keeping with his unpretentious style, Kevin, without fanfare, galvanized an effort to send precious supplies and technical assistance to other hospitals and community healthcare providers that were in dire need,” she said.
As hospitals around the region got back to normal, Beth Israel Lahey Health has made progress executing on Tabb’s initial vision. The system has continually moved care to community sites. Today, 64 percent of the care Beth Israel Lahey Health delivers to its 1.7 million patients annually is outside of its Boston academic medical center and Burlington hospital. The system has also pushed forward with investments in primary care, with a 30 percent growth of new primary care providers in the last four fiscal years. Just in the last year, the system added 60 primary care clinicians.
In all, the system counts 14 hospitals and 42,000 employees — including more than 4,800 physicians — among its staff.
Tabb has continued to eye more traditional growth as well. In 2023, Tabb and the CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute shocked the medical world when they unveiled something that the two had been secretly discussing for some time — Dana-Farber would break its longstanding relationship with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and would build a new cancer hospital in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess.
Though that deal has completed necessary regulatory approvals, the work has just started. Beyond building a new cancer hospital, which is expected to be completed in 2031, Beth Israel will have to staff up immensely to accommodate the hospital side of cancer care that Dana-Farber currently relies on the Brigham to do.
Tabb was the backbone of the vision for that cancer hospital and negotiating the relationship with Dana-Farber, Hornidge said, but other leaders are now overseeing the execution of his plan.
“I have tremendous confidence that we won’t skip a beat on that,” she said, adding: “When a vision is compelling and a relationship is really strong as it is with Dana-Farber, it’s built to outlast any particular leader.”
Dr. Benjamin L. Ebert, CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, praised Tabb’s leadership.
“This collaboration, including the region’s only adult inpatient cancer hospital, will benefit generations of cancer patients and simply would not have been possible without Kevin’s leadership, integrity, and steadfast commitment to patients,” Ebert said in a release. “The team he assembled and inspired is exceptionally well prepared to carry this work forward.”
Others also recognized Tabb’s work, from creating a major competitor to the state’s largest health system, Mass General Brigham, to growing Beth Israel’s physician organization.
“Kevin has made a monumental contribution to the health care community during his time here,” said Ellen Lutch Bender, a health care consultant and CEO of Bender Strategies.
That’s not to say what comes next will be simple. Slashing Medicaid reimbursements to a potential increase in uninsured and underinsured patients will make the work of hospitals that much more difficult. Health systems have grappled with other escalating changes from the federal government, from attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to threats to research budgets. Meanwhile, costs, including on drugs, continue to rise, causing providers to demand higher reimbursements, while insurers are reluctant to give in to ever-increasing spending.
It’s enough work to keep Tabb busy for the coming year, but also problems he anticipates will be ripe for tackling by his successor.
“All the other issues that we talk about frequently — the changing reimbursement model and difficulties in health care — they are there and not going away,” he said. “It’s the perfect time for someone to come and be here the next 15 years to come work on those things.”
Jessica Bartlett can be reached at jessica.bartlett@globe.com. Follow her @ByJessBartlett.
