Health System VP will leave U.

Gordon Williams, senior vice president for academic and clinical affairs in the University of Pennsylvania Health System, resigned from his post last month. According to Williams, who also served as vice dean for administration in the School of Medicine, he accepted a job at Northwestern University in late January. Williams will assume his new position on April 1, according to William Kelley, CEO of the Medical Center and Health System and dean of the Medical School. "[Northwestern has] been trying to recruit me back for a year," Williams said. "Finally they offered me a package that was too good to turn down." Williams came to Penn six years ago, after serving as associate dean of Northwestern's Medical School. He said despite the fact that he enjoyed his years at Penn, he is glad to be returning "home." "My wife is from the Illinois area and I'm from Iowa," he said. "Occasionally, home calls." Kelley expressed his "deepest regret" at Williams' resignation in a letter to the Health System on February 5. The letter called Williams a "pillar of strength for the School of Medicine, the Medical Center, the Health System and indeed, the entire University." According to Kelley, Williams has fulfilled many responsibilities at the University, including serving as head of the planning and construction team for the Stellar-Chance Laboratories, which opened in 1994. He is currently serving the same position for Biomedical Research Building II, which is scheduled to open in late 1998. Williams said his years at the University have been "interesting," adding that the school has changed dramatically in the last six years. "When I came, we had a good marketplace for health systems," he said. "Since then, the whole marketplace of the health care delivery environment has become tighter and very competitive." Williams added, however, that he feels Penn did "exactly the right thing to keep up the academic part of the Health System." He said the biggest challenge now is keeping up the revenues to support Health System academics. "However, if I were betting on any institution to be successful, it would be Penn," he added. Williams played a key role in the restructuring of the Clinical Practices of the University of Pennsylvania, following last year's settlement with the United States Department of Health and Human Services for CPUP's alleged overbilling of Medicare patients. Williams explained that although situations like the CPUP settlement are never easy, the incident forced a remodeling of the unit's billing systems.