Baptist Health South Florida announced an expansion of its physician leadership team with the appointments of Bernie Fernandez, M.D., as the new Chief Executive Officer of Baptist Health Medical Group, and Jack A. Ziffer, Ph.D., M.D., to Executive Vice President and Chief Medical and Clinical Transformation Officer for Baptist Health South Florida.

 

Dr. Fernandez, who most recently was president of Cleveland Clinic Florida, will lead Baptist Health Medical Group. In a newly established role at Baptist Health, Dr. Ziffer will define the strategy and vision for the overall expansion of physician enterprise initiatives and represent physician interests at the highest levels of the organization.

 

Dr. Fernandez, an internist who specializes in vascular medicine, oversaw Cleveland Clinic Florida’s 200 physicians, 2,000 employees and multiple locations throughout the region. Dr. Ziffer is an internationally recognized expert in cardiac radiology and nuclear medicine and the inaugural CEO of Baptist Health Medical Group.

 

In 2013, Dr. Fernandez was appointed to the Florida Board of Medicine by Governor Rick Scott, and currently serves as vice chairman. He also serves on the faculty of Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. Active in the South Florida community, Dr. Fernandez is a member of the Sun Sentinel’s South Florida 100 and Broward Workshop. He serves on numerous boards, including the Community Foundation of Broward, the Orange Bowl Committee and the World Presidents’ Organization.

 

A luminary physician in the field of cardiac imaging, Dr. Ziffer is a founding member and past president of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography and past vice president of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. He also has held numerous national leadership roles, including on the Cardiovascular Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and the American Board of Nuclear Medicine. In addition, he is a clinical professor of radiology at FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.