Close up image of a caretaker helping older woman walk

Bruce Yarwood, chief legislative counsel for the American Health Care Association, has been named interim president and CEO, the organization announced yesterday. The move ends Hal Daub’s tenure as top exec at the nation’s largest nursing home association, less than 14 months after he took office.

Daub’s departure comes shortly after an alliance of 15 national nursing home chains said it would be pulling financial and leadership support from AHCA. Sources close to the situation say the large chains had discussed a withdrawal earlier this year. But their concerns mounted this summer after Daub released a statement about Medicare reimbursement cuts that they considered too soft.

AHCA Board Chairman Steve Chies, however, did not want to put too much weight onto the alliance’s threatened pullout.

“You could characterize it as a mutual desire to go our separate ways,” Chies said. “I don’t want to characterize this as ‘an alliance issue.’ It’s something that’s been kind of percolating through the organization for some time now. The board has made the decision to go in somewhat of a different direction.

“One of the things we want to make sure we’re doing is going out and finding coalition partners, and Hal had a slightly different strategy he wanted to pursue,” Chies explained. “The board really wants us to go back to some of the basics and focus on the needs of the membership and coalition partners we work with, not just the Alliance but AARP and the NCCNHRs (National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform) of the world.”

Yarwood has “vast experience in the long term care field as both an administrator as well as an executive,” the association said Monday. He is managing director of Helmsin & Yarwood, a Washington consulting firm, and also has been COO for Crestwood Hospitals, Inc., and executive vice president to the California Association of Health Facilities. Prior to that, he directed “sizable” portions of the California Department of Health.

AHCA leaders also announced they created a new senior management position, COO, to smooth transition issues. Filling that post on an interim basis is Jennifer Shimer, who has been AHCA’s senior vice president for business development and communications since 2003. Shimer also has served AHCA as vice president of member services, chief of staff, and senior director of affiliate relations and member services. She also has served as administrator of Hillhaven Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, in Chapel Hill, NC.

Chies said the board would take about three weeks to decide what type of search it wants to conduct for Daub’s permanent replacement. He added that it was not clear whether the newly created COO position would exist after a new CEO takes office, which could be nine to 10 months down the road.