Lifespan welcomes new hospital senior leadership executive at ‘pivotal time’

Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. (Courtesy of Lifespan)

The largest health network in Rhode Island has added a new leader to its executive suite to oversee two of its biggest hospitals and overall hospital patient care.

Sarah Frost, a health care executive with two decades of experience in the industry, started her new job as Lifespan’s chief of hospital operations on Monday, June 3. She now serves as president of both Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital as well.

Frost is now responsible for oversight and coordination of quality, safety and patient care across hospitals in the Lifespan network — which also includes The Miriam Hospital in Providence, Newport Hospital and Bradley Hospital in East Providence.

Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s hospitals combined have a total of 719 beds and more than 8,000 employees, according to a Lifespan annual report from 2022. Lifespan’s operating revenue that year was $2.8 billion for the entire network.

Frost replaces Dr. Saul Weingart, who left his post as the Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro president in April 2023 after roughly two years on the job.

Prior to Lifespan, Frost was CEO for two Arizona hospitals, both in the Banner Health network — a job that entailed oversight of 6,000 employees and 900 inpatient beds, as well as $1.5 billion in operating revenue. Frost also steered the hospitals toward improvements in their academic medical centers and outpatient clinics. She obtained her master of business administration from the University of Phoenix.

“Sarah is a dynamic leader, highly accomplished in moving large health systems toward performance excellence,” said John Fernandez, president and CEO of Lifespan, in a statement. “She joins Lifespan at a pivotal time as we look to upgrade our hospital facilities and provide ‘wow’ care across the system.”

That “wow” element might help Fernandez achieve some of the institutional goals he shared at an invitation-only health care summit at the Rhode Island State House on May 28. Fernandez emphasized the need for structural changes in the Rhode Island health care system to help smooth operations at his not-for-profit hospitals, which he argued would be public hospitals if they were in another state.

“We need to focus on getting stuff done,” Fernandez said at the event, and pointed to Medicaid reimbursements as a major financial issue for his hospitals.

Aside from recent federal data that suggests significantly long wait times at Rhode Island Hospital’s emergency room, Fernandez pointed to overcrowding issues, and said it’s hard to run hospitals effectively when there are “hundreds of patients there for days that they don’t need to be.”

“I love my hospitals, but it’s not a great place to be if you can avoid coming to the hospital,” Fernandez said.

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