Sep. 8, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Amedisys, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMED)(or the “Company”), one of America's leading home health and hospice nursing companies, today announced the appointment of Dr. Michael O. Fleming as the Chief Medical Officer. He is past President of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the Louisiana Academy of Family Physicians, and is founding Chairman of the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum, a partnership with the State of Louisiana aiming to provide high-quality health care to the state. Dr. Fleming has served as Speaker of the Congress of Delegates of the AAFP and as Board Chair of the AAFP Board of Directors. As an active member of the medical quality field, he serves on various boards and panels to the health information technology industry. In this role as Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Fleming will lead all of our clinical quality initiatives and take an active role in shaping our future strategies.
The Company is pleased to announce that Tasha Mears, Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations has been appointed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a member of the Technical Expert Panel Project: Care Transition Measure Development. This prestigious panel has been formed to develop measures used to deliver quality care to Medicare beneficiaries. Ms. Mears is one of a select clinical few nationwide who were chosen to this panel. She is a Registered Nurse, and has served at Amedisys in a number of field positions including Clinical Director, Regional Administrator, Regional Director of Business Development and Director of Episode Management. She also served as Director of Quality and Clinical Technology and as Vice President of Quality Management and Analytics prior to her current role. Ms. Mears has also contributed to several studies related to Medicare spending and hospitalization and has participated on numerous industry related quality improvement projects and panels. She will report directly to Dr. Fleming.
The Company also announced that it has engaged Russell Reynolds Associates to conduct searches to fill the positions of President/Chief Operating Officer and that of Chief Information Officer. The searches will be national in scope and will include both internal and external candidates.
Amedisys, Inc. is headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Its common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “AMED”.
