Shane Strum appointed permanent CEO of Memorial Healthcare System in Broward

Shane Strum is now the permanent president and CEO of Memorial Healthcare System and will also continue to lead its sister Broward Health, bringing the Broward health systems one step closer to his vision of a unified approach to care in the region.

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Strum, who has led Memorial for nearly two years as interim CEO, had his appointment made permanent Wednesday afternoon, as was expected, by the seven-member board that oversees Memorial. The seven-member board that oversees Broward Health also unanimously approved the dual CEO role at its own meeting Wednesday night.

Strum was already the CEO of Broward Health, the public health system that primarily serves northern Broward, when he was tapped back in 2024 to temporarily lead its much larger sister Memorial, which primarily serves southern Broward. Memorial operates six hospitals and various doctors’ offices and specialty centers, including for transplant, cancer and pediatric care at the renowned Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, housed on the same Hollywood campus as Memorial Regional Hospital.

Both Memorial and Broward Health, which operates four hospitals and other centers in the county, are taxpayer-funded health systems that provide care to everyone, regardless of insurance status and ability to pay. Strum is the first person to be CEO of both health systems.

Under Strum, the two health systems are aggressively expanding into pockets of Broward where residents don’t have nearby access to care.

They’re collaborating more on patient care, with some employees now working for both health systems to expand treatment options, part of Strum’s collaboration vision. But Strum’s tenure has also brought leadership shakeups and physician and executive departures, including as recently as last month with the departure of Caitlin Stella, the CEO of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, and the resignation of Dr. Ronald Flord, the chief medical officer of the pediatric hospital, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Strum described the end of Stella’s employment to the newspaper as part of a “reorganization” strategy that “lets Paul Gaden, the CEO of Memorial (our flagship), expand his oversight of the entire Memorial Regional Hospital campus, which includes Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.” Other executives have received promotions.

Strum has indicated that he’s open to merging the two safety-net hospitals, which together have over 28,000 employees, telling the Miami Herald he believes the key to improving access to care, and the quality of care, is by having doctors at both health systems work together. He’ll need Florida’s Legislature to back the idea, but lawmakers don’t seem to have much of an appetite for an official merger — at least for now. A bill that would have streamlined the collaboration process between the two health systems failed to gain traction in Tallahassee again for the second consecutive year.

His vision for a more united approach to care, which has led to the slogan “Better Together,” now also includes Nicklaus Children’s Health System, which is operating the pediatric hospital that’s on Broward Health’s Fort Lauderdale campus. Strum wants to bring together Memorial, Broward Health and Nicklaus pediatric specialists to create the largest pediatric health network in Florida.

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Not everyone is on board. A 2025 Change.org petition reportedly organized by hospital employees to protest the now-failed bill that would have let the two health systems collaborate more seamlessly claims that Strum has “already begun dismantling Memorial from the inside.” The petition, which has garnered over 2,700 signatures, has comments from supporters, some of whom say they are patients and others who say they are employees, describing dwindling care and a work culture where “employees are afraid” and “everyone is concerned about the next layoff.”

Members of Memorial’s board of commissioners, the group that hired Strum as CEO, see things differently.

Memorial’s board chair, Elizabeth Justen, said Strum’s time as interim CEO served as the “longest interview in Memorial history” and that he “understands the history, the people and the responsibilities” of Memorial, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

It’s not clear yet how much Strum will make as Memorial’s permanent leader. Those negotiations will now begin.

The health executive had previously declined to receive a salary from Memorial when he was tapped to be its interim leader, receiving an annual salary of a dollar from the health system. Last year he received a compensation package of about $2.43 million as Broward Health CEO, according to the hospital.

That’s more than what his Miami-Dade counterpart, David Zambrana, the new CEO of Jackson Health System, brings in for leading Miami-Dade’s public health system, one of the largest in the nation, though it’s still less than what other South Florida hospital leaders make. Nonprofit hospitals and private for-profit hospital systems typically pay their top executives more than taxpayer-funded public hospitals.

Memorial’s board of commissioners plans to hire a firm to help determine how much to pay Strum, similar to how Jackson hired an independent firm to compare CEO pay levels across health systems similar in size and complexity to Jackson when determining the pay for its new CEO.

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This story was originally published September 2, 2026 at 6:31 PM.