Greetings, colleagues. I can’t start this column without mentioning one of the biggest sea changes in Johns Hopkins’ recent history: the retirement of my esteemed colleague Ron Peterson. I’m sure many of you have had the pleasure of working with Ron in one capacity or another over his 44 years of service to Johns Hopkins and 20 years in the dual roles of president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to Kevin Sowers, former president and CEO of Duke University Hospital, who stepped into these roles in February. As you’ll see in the story A New Era of Leadership, Kevin brings a fresh perspective to our ongoing discussions of value in health care. Starting as a staff nurse in oncology, Kevin spent 32 years with Duke, gradually taking on bigger roles. His history there includes overseeing operations of a 1,000-bed teaching hospital, implementing a strategic plan and leading several major building projects. Through it all, he has been admired for his collaborative spirit and his ability to partner effectively with people at all levels of the organization.

Kevin said he wasn’t necessarily looking for a new job when he visited Johns Hopkins. However, he was so impressed by the employees he met who have dedicated themselves to developing new care delivery models and other solutions to address the necessary changes in health care, he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to join in! This enthusiasm for our work, combined with Kevin’s broad experience and commitment to our academic mission, make him the perfect leader for our health system.

Meanwhile, our widespread work in high-value care marches on. Our “Meet Your Partners” section introduces you to Pamela Johnson and Susan Peterson, who are co-directing the Johns Hopkins High Value Practice Alliance. Formed with the goal of engaging our students and residents in research to support high-value diagnostic tests and to ensure that unnecessary tests can be safely reduced in practice, the alliance’s efforts already have led to several published papers and the deployment of clinical decision-support tools to guide ordering of imaging tests. Along the same lines, we’ll tell you about online modules developed here that introduce wise ordering of medical tests to third-year medical students and how multidisciplinary clinics for lung cancer, like the one we have here at Johns Hopkins, can save thousands of dollars in hospital and professional fees.

I’m thrilled to see so many of my colleagues jumping on this bandwagon. It’s going to take a village, so they say, to meet the changing demands of the marketplace.