{"id":133574,"date":"2026-06-16T15:40:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T21:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mercy-hospital-ceo-to-leave-role\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T18:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:48:18","slug":"mercy-hospital-ceo-to-leave-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mercy-hospital-ceo-to-leave-role\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercy Hospital CEO to leave role"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mercy
Mercy Hospital President Josh Neff, photographed in 2024, will be leaving the role effective July 2. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Josh Neff, president of Mercy Hospital, is leaving after two years in the role and eight years with Mercy\u2019s parent company, CommonSpirit.<\/p>\n

Neff is leaving effective July 2 to \u201cpursue a new opportunity,\u201d according to a statement by Pete Powers, president of the Greater Colorado & Kansas Market for CommonSpirit Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter eight years of dedicated service to CommonSpirit Health and southwest Colorado, Josh Neff, President of Mercy Hospital, will be leaving CommonSpirit to pursue a new opportunity,\u201d Powers said. \u201c\u2026 We are grateful for Josh\u2019s leadership and wish him the very best in his next chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neff declined to comment, citing policy reasons, and directed all inquiries to the CommonSpirit media team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHospital presidents don\u2019t comment to the press,\u201d he told The Durango Herald<\/em> Tuesday.<\/p>\n

An interim leader is expected to be named in the coming days, Powers said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(We) have begun a comprehensive search for our next hospital president, who will build upon our legacy of high-quality, compassionate care in Durango and beyond,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Neff, who previously worked as the CEO of St. Elizabeth Hospital in Fort Morgan and as CommonSpirit\u2019s vice president of integration and rural health before stepping into the Mercy CEO role, replaced former CEO Brandon Mencini<\/a> July 1, 2024.<\/p>\n

Mencini began his tenure October 2022.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Herald<\/em> in 2024, Neff acknowledged the whiplash communities can experience when there are multiple turnovers in the CEO\u2019s office, and said he hoped to remain in Southwest Colorado for good.<\/p>\n

No information was shared by CommonSpirit or Neff about the nature or location of Neff\u2019s new position.<\/p>\n

Concerns from some community members and employees arose in recent months surrounding Mercy\u2019s in- and outpatient hospice and palliative care services.<\/p>\n

epond<\/em>@durangoherald<\/em>.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018New opportunity\u2019 cited as reason for departure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1820,28,68,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-133574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-headlines","tag-mercy-regional-medical-center","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133596,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133574\/revisions\/133596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133574"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=133574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}