N.Y. Administrator Named to Head UCI Medical Center

A top administrator for the massive New York state university system has been named to head the financially troubled UCI Medical Center in Orange, university officials announced Friday.

Mary A. Piccione, 53, who lives in New York City, will be the first woman in the top administrative post at any UC teaching hospital. Her $125,000 salary will make her the highest-paid woman administrator in the nine-campus UC system.

Piccione is now special assistant to Jerome Komisar, acting chancellor of the 370,000-student State University of New York system.

“This is an example of California taking away another top person from New York,” Komisar said in a telephone interview from Albany Friday. “I consider this a major loss. She is a very bright, energetic person. She is absolutely excellent, and she has done a first-class job in working with the health care centers in our state system.”

Piccione’s appointment will be effective Oct. 24, pending ratification by the UC Board of Regents, university officials said. She would succeed Leon Schwartz, who has been serving as both hospital director and UCI vice chancellor of administration and business services for the past three years.

UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason had appointed Schwartz to temporarily fill the hospital director’s post in 1985. The vast UCI Medical Center, an intensive research facility as well as a teaching hospital that serves large numbers of poor and indigent people, was reeling under deficits when Schwartz took over. Under Schwartz, the medical center enjoyed two years of balanced budgets, but it began plunging into red ink again this past year.

In the 1987-88 fiscal year ended June 30, the medical center showed a deficit of about $5 million. UCI is forecasting losses of as much as $11 million by next June 30.

UC and state legislative analysts have said the major problem for the UCI Medical Center is that a disproportionate number--35%--of Orange County’s poor residents are referred to that hospital for treatment. State and county funds no longer pay enough to reimburse the care of these indigents, medical center officials have said.

UCI Medical Center must also bear the costs of its nationally acclaimed research and its service as a teaching hospital for the UCI College of Medicine.

In a telephone interview from New York Friday, Piccione said she is well aware that she is coming to a medical center plagued with money problems.

“I know about the issues,” Piccione said. “I’ve faced the same problem with not enough funding for indigent patients here in New York. Actually, funding for indigent patients is a national problem. This is something that needs attention by both the state legislatures and the Congress.”

Piccione was previously executive director of University Hospital of the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn for six years. She said that hospital, like UCI Medical Center, had deficit problems. She said that during her tenure, she got its budget “stabilized.”

According to UC officials, Piccione’s work at that hospital “reorganized the finances and operations of the medical center, resulting in a major revenue increase.” While there, she also served as a co-chair of the Health Systems Agency Perinatal Task Force and developed a regional heart-surgery program with other hospitals in the area.

Piccione said she realizes that her new job will probably require her to appeal for more money from the California Legislature. Schwartz, acting as its director, frequently flew to Sacramento and succeeded in persuading the Legislature to add “bailout” money to cover the medical center’s deficits.

Piccione said that in her work with the State University of New York system, she became a veteran at dealing with a state legislature.

There has been debate within the health care field about the feasibility of university teaching hospitals. Some experts argue that the universities can no longer afford them, that they should turn over their hospitals to “more efficient profit-making corporations.”

Piccione said she is familiar with that argument “and I think it’s nonsense. I think the role of a university hospital is absolutely necessary. It is the university hospital that trains the physicians going out into the nation.”

Piccione, who is single, said she plans to move to Orange County in October but that she is not sure where she will live. As for her hobbies, she said: “I like to read; I like historical fiction. And as a city dweller here in New York, I’ve enjoyed going to the opera and the theater. I love foreign movies. I also try to go for a swim once in a while.”

Piccione was selected by a university committee named by Peltason about six months ago. After conducting a national search, the committee recommended Piccione to Peltason, who accepted the recommendation, according to Linda Granell, a spokeswoman for the university. UC regents are scheduled to vote on the appointment at their September meeting, Granell said.

Piccione, a New York City native, received master’s and bachelor’s degrees in English from St. John’s University in Jamaica, N.Y. She received a second master’s degree in public administration and health policy from New York University in 1975.

Piccione was appointed assistant administrator of University Hospital in Brooklyn in 1977. She was promoted to associate executive director the next year. In 1981, she became its executive director, a position she held until 1987, when she was named special assistant to Komisar.

As special assistant, Piccione helped plan and implement major health-care improvements for the university system, Komisar said.