Dr. John Warner, the head of UT Southwestern’s hospitals, has been chosen as the American Heart Association’s president elect. He will begin his term as president in 2017.
“I’m honored to be selected,” Warner said in a prepared statement. “I’ve been involved with the AHA at every stage of my professional life, and know firsthand the contributions the organization makes to research, education, and the health and wellness of people all over the world.”
Warner, an interventional cardiologist, was deeply involved in the planning of UT Southwestern’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, which opened in 2014. He oversaw the formation of stakeholder committees that met to discuss every inch of the hospital, from the layout to the technology to the operating rooms. He now is the executive in charge of the 460-bed hospital, as well as the Zale Lipshy University Hospital, which is shifting over to a primary use as a neurological specialty center, and the clinical operations at all of UT Southwestern’s care sites. He reports to Drs. Bruce Meyer and Daniel Podolsky, the vice president for system affairs and the university president, respectively.
Before his time in hospital administration, Warner earned a medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He later received an MBA from the Physician Executive Program at the University of Tennessee. He served as chief resident at UT Southwestern as he worked to complete his residency in internal medicine. He also had cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology fellowships at Duke University Medical Center. He was on the faculty of Duke until 2003, when he returned to Dallas and UT Southwestern.
He has also been the medical director of the university’s Doris and Harry W. Bass Jr. Clinical Center for Heart Lung and Vascular Disease. Warner this year was named a senior executive officer over Southwestern Health Resources, the massive clinical care network that brings together the school’s specialists with Texas Health’s primary care physician base. It will have more than 2,000 practitioners when it launches later this year.
“As a cardiologist and CEO of our university hospitals, Dr. Warner has proven himself to be a visionary and inspirational leader who has been a force for excellence in the care we deliver,” Podolsky said in a statement. “I am confident that these same qualities will enable him to have great impact in his leadership of AHA. We are enormously proud to have him elected to serve in this important role.”
