"I feel honored and very excited," Weinstein said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "I think it's a tremendous opportunity to do something with great colleagues and a wonderful staff that serve people in need throughout northern New England."
As the state government continues to cut medical funding, Dartmouth-Hitchcock has needed to systemize management between the various centers, Weinstein said. Dartmouth-Hitchcock has been planning for the new leadership structure for "quite some time," he said.
"The notion is that in these times of health care being in a state of rapid evolution, or revolution, the decision processes need to be streamlined and we need the ability to be mobile in our work so things can be simpler," Weinstein said. "Across the system, we coordinate with more than 900 physicians, 800 employees and sites across New Hampshire, and when you have a single person those things are a lot easier to coordinate."
Weinstein, a spine surgeon, has been president of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic since 2010 and TDI director since 2007, according to the press release. He served as chairman of the Departments of Orthopedics at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Dartmouth Medical School from 2002 to 2010.
Weinstein developed the spine center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and established the Center for Shared Decision Making in 1999. He worked with College President Jim Yong Kim to form the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science in 2009 and was recently named a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences.
Weinstein said his first task as president and CEO will be to help the organization adjust to budget cuts while continuing to deliver quality patient care. DHMC Director of Media Relations Rick Adams agreed that Weinstein's greatest challenge will come from working in the face of drastic budget costs.
"He has broad knowledge and a commitment to trying to prove the delivery of health care and bringing down costs," Adams said. "The biggest challenge is finding a way to do things we need to do while still providing quality care in a rapidly shifting environment."
Weinstein emphasized Dartmouth-Hitchcock's dedication to providing care for people of all backgrounds despite budget cuts.
"The key is our patients," Weinstein said. "We're in the business of taking care of people of all ages and of all needs, and we need to make sure that we take care of that mission."
Weinstein said he also hopes to strengthen research, academics and value-based care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospitals.
"In academics, I want to make sure that I work with medical students to have best medical school program with rotations at the hospital, and to get the best post-grad training after they leave," Weinstein said. "I want to make sure that we continue to have value-based care, which means we're going to have the highest quality care at the lowest cost we can in a measurable way."
Weinstein's long-term goals include collaborating among regional hospitals to educate people about their well-being and limit their future medical needs, he said.
"We need to think about how to manage the growing population as it ages and grows, and what strategies to use for prevention, nutrition, wellness, smoking and obesity," Weinstein said. "We need to be preventive in those areas so people don't need to come to the hospital, and we need to work with the community and educate people about those things."
Adams commended Weinstein's "national reputation as an orthopedic surgeon" as well as the influence of TDI, which he said has become a "standard reference for health care" under Weinstein's leadership.
Weinstein, who will step down as TDI director to assume his new roles, said that he will miss leading TDI.
"That's been a love and passion of mine and we've done a lot of things studying the health care of the country," Weinstein said about TDI.
