A leadership shake-up at the top of Mercy Springfield has left former president Craig McCoy without a job.
“Mercy has implemented a new leadership structure in the Springfield area,” Mercy said in a statement to the Daily Citizen. “With those changes, David Argueta and Dr. Brad Wyrsch, respectively, lead hospital and clinic operations for Mercy Springfield Communities. As a result, Craig McCoy is no longer with Mercy and his position will not be filled.”
McCoy was the president of Mercy Springfield Communities, effectively the CEO of the area’s operations. He was one of three presidents connected to Mercy operations. David Argueta, Mercy Hospitals Springfield, was named to his role in April. Longtime hand surgeon Brad Wyrsch is president of Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities.
McCoy’s tenure in Springfield began in January of 2020, just weeks before COVID-19 began to spread across the world. In an interview with the Springfield Business Journal, he said the pandemic forced him “to quickly learn the capabilities of a large health system and evaluate our crisis capacity.” McCoy was one of several health care leaders who shared updates about COVID trends from inside hospital walls, and urged members of the community to get vaccinated. He was named SBJ’s 2021 Health Care Champions Administrator.
McCoy brought 10 years of health system CEO experience to his role in Springfield. He moved here from Greenville, S.C., where he led Bon Secours Mercy Health. The hospital had merged with Mercy in 2018, and he and other leaders were told that their jobs would be eliminated, according to the Springfield Business Journal.
“I had worked for the combined company for nine months, so I wasn’t expecting it,” he told SBJ after he moved to Springfield to take the job here.
McCoy replaced interim president Jon Swope, who took over in 2017 after former president and neurosurgeon Alan Scarrow was fired from his executive role amid an investigation into the handling of mentally ill and violent patients that threatened the hospital’s Medicare and Medicaid funding status.
McCoy oversaw Springfield’s second-largest employer, as well as a health care system which has hospitals in Springfield, Aurora, Cassville, Lebanon, Mountain View and Ozark and over 300 clinics and outpatient centers in the region.
“I see my role as a part of the bigger health care picture to serve the community and to provide health care to all those in need,” McCoy told the Business Journal in 2021.
