Updated September 24, 2026.
Tucson Orthopaedic Institute is preparing for a consequential leadership handoff. The appointment of Alex Dashe may shape more than the next executive chapter of one specialty practice; it also offers Arizona medical groups a practical example of how to structure succession before the new leader’s first day.
Orthopedic Care Partners announced on September 24 that Alex Dashe will lead its Arizona Division and become CEO of Tucson Orthopaedic Institute on October 19. Dashe joins after serving as chief operating officer of OrthoArizona, where the employer announcement says he led operations across 22 clinics, more than 80 physicians, ancillary services, and patient access.
Outgoing Arizona Division President and Tucson Orthopaedic Institute CEO Paula Hecht will work with Dashe during the transition and remain an adviser through the end of 2026. That planned overlap is the most instructive part of the announcement for other Arizona practices.
Why a medical-group CEO role is different
In a physician organization, doctors may be clinicians, owners, board members, revenue producers, and operational stakeholders at the same time. A CEO must lead the business while respecting clinical judgment, physician governance, and the identity of individual practices.
That structure changes how authority works. A health-system executive may be accustomed to a defined hierarchy and centralized support functions. A medical-group CEO often has to align physicians, locations, service lines, and a management platform through influence as well as formal authority.
Tucson Orthopaedic Institute adds another layer. The incoming executive will lead both a local specialty practice and Orthopedic Care Partners’ Arizona Division. The role therefore connects local operations with a broader platform’s growth, infrastructure, and physician-partnership strategy.
Before evaluating candidates, boards should define which decisions belong to the local practice, which sit with the management platform, and which require shared approval. A title alone cannot resolve those boundaries.
What the Tucson transition gets right
The publicly announced plan creates time for a deliberate handoff. Dashe is joining before his October 19 CEO start date, and Hecht will remain available through year-end.
That overlap can protect several forms of institutional knowledge:
- physician relationships and governance expectations;
- leadership-team responsibilities and decision routines;
- current operational priorities and unresolved issues;
- relationships with hospitals, payers, vendors, and community partners;
- the history behind staffing, access, and growth decisions; and
- cultural practices that may not appear in an organizational chart.
An overlap period is valuable only when the work is explicit. If both leaders attend every meeting without clear authority, employees may not know who makes the final decision. A stronger plan assigns specific relationships, decisions, and deliverables to each leader as responsibility transfers.
This extends an important lesson from other recent Arizona healthcare leadership succession: continuity should be designed, not assumed.
Define the next mandate before the job description
The board should be able to explain what the CEO must accomplish during the first 12 to 24 months. That mandate may include stabilizing operations, improving patient access, integrating locations, strengthening physician recruitment, developing ancillary services, or preparing for responsible growth.
Before opening a search, physician leaders should agree on:
- the two or three outcomes that will define a successful first two years;
- the CEO’s authority over budgets, hiring, compensation, vendors, locations, and service-line investments;
- the relationship among the CEO, board chair, managing physician, and platform leadership;
- the balance between enterprise standards and local or specialty-level autonomy; and
- the financial, access, quality, workforce, and culture measures the board will review.
Without that alignment, different interviewers may score candidates against different, unstated versions of the job.
A practical medical-group CEO scorecard
The following HealthOp framework is an illustrative starting point. Each organization should adjust the weighting to fit its ownership structure and operating priorities.
Physician governance and trust: 25%
Look for evidence that the candidate can work with physicians who hold different roles and priorities. Strong candidates can explain how they build trust, handle disagreement, and translate board direction into accountable execution.
Multisite and specialty operations: 20%
Ask how the candidate has improved scheduling, staffing, patient access, revenue-cycle workflows, technology, and performance reporting across multiple locations without treating every clinic as identical.
Strategy and responsible growth: 15%
Growth experience matters when it connects to demand, physician capacity, capital, workforce supply, and integration. Candidates should distinguish sustainable expansion from adding locations or services faster than the organization can support them.
Financial stewardship and practice economics: 15%
The CEO should understand practice-level profitability, cash flow, payer mix, compensation design, capital allocation, and the financial effect of operational decisions.
Talent, culture, and succession: 15%
Evaluate the candidate’s record on leadership development, difficult-to-fill roles, employee communication, retention, and internal succession. A growth strategy can fail when the workforce plan arrives too late.
Quality, access, and compliance: 10%
The candidate should show how quality, patient experience, compliance, and workforce capacity are built into operating decisions rather than reviewed after the fact.
Arizona market knowledge can be a useful advantage across all six categories, but local relationships should not replace evidence of leadership effectiveness.
Turn the overlap into a 100-day transition plan
The incoming and outgoing leaders should not simply share calendars. A practical transition plan should identify:
- Decision rights by date. Employees should know when final authority moves from the outgoing CEO to the incoming leader.
- Priority relationships. Physician owners, senior leaders, partners, and critical external contacts should have sequenced introductions.
- Known operating risks. The new CEO needs an honest view of vacancies, access problems, financial pressure, technology issues, and commitments already underway.
- Listening and communication milestones. The first 100 days should include structured conversations with physicians, managers, frontline teams, and key partners.
- Measures for the first year. The board and CEO should agree on a small set of outcomes and a regular review cadence.
The outgoing leader can provide context without preselecting every future decision. The incoming leader needs enough continuity to avoid preventable disruption and enough authority to lead the next chapter.
The bottom line
Tucson Orthopaedic Institute’s transition illustrates a principle that applies across Arizona specialty practices: CEO succession is an operating process, not a single announcement.
The strongest searches begin with role design, use a scorecard tied to the organization’s actual mandate, and carry the work through a structured handoff and first 100 days. When those steps are clear, physician owners can evaluate candidates on what the organization needs next rather than on title, familiarity, or presentation alone.
If your Arizona healthcare organization needs help identifying and evaluating hard-to-find leaders, learn more about HealthOp’s direct-to-hire recruiting or our broader support for healthcare employers.
Sources
- Orthopedic Care Partners, employer-issued announcement, September 24, 2026: Orthopedic Care Partners Names Alex Dashe President of Arizona Division
- Orthopedic Care Partners, employer-issued background, July 22, 2021: Orthopedic Care Partners Announces Affiliation with Tucson Orthopaedic Institute
