Brookdale Names New Chief Information Officer

Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD) added another member to its executive team with the hiring of Chris Bayham as Chief Information Officer.

He will report to CFO Steve Swain and replaces Hank Reimer, a Brookdale vice president who had been filling in the role since former CIO Andrew Laudato left the Brentwood, Tennessee-based operator last December to become CTO at The Vitamin Shoppe.

Bayham spent over three years at Nashville-based health care technology company Change Healthcare (Nasdaq: CHNG) — the past 17 months as CIO. During his tenure, Change Healthcare merged with McKesson Technology Solutions and grew to earn more than $3 billion in revenue. Change Healthcare launched an initial public offering in June.

Prior to Change Healthcare, Bayham spent two years as CIO for Cardinal Health at Home, Cardinal Health’s home health division. He also served similar roles at Twinsburg, Ohio-based AssuraMed and UnitedHealthcare Specialty Benefits, a subsidiary of Columbia, Maryland-based United Healthcare.

He was awarded the Greater Nashville Technology Council’s “CIO of the Year” award last year.

“As I have gotten to know the people at Brookdale through the interviewing process and now onboarding, I have been impressed at how important the company’s mission of enriching lives is to associates at various levels of the company,” Bayham said in a statement. “What this company does is very important, and I am eager to step in and make a difference for this nation’s seniors.”

Bayham will initially focus on implementing Brookdale’s proprietary sales and marketing system, electronic residency agreements, and improvements in services provided to residents, CEO Cindy Baier said during the company’s second quarter earnings call last week.

The company launched several pilots to accelerate improvements in its sales cycle in the second quarter.

In one pilot, the company tasked an executive team with aiding 30 communities that showed promise for improvement. That effort helped grow occupancy at those communities, and Brookdale plans to add another 20 communities to the pilot soon. In another pilot that bore fruit, Brookdale used data analytics to target digital marketing investments in select cities where it operates.

Overall, Brookdale is continuing a turnaround effort launched last year when Baier took the helm as CEO. The company is now in the 5th inning of that effort, she told SHN last week following the Q2 earnings release.