Norm Deschene, the CEO of Wellforce, announced last week that he intends to retire at the end of 2018. Deschene led Lowell General Hospital as COO and CEO for 31 years before helping to create Wellforce and serving as its CEO since its 2014 inception. He served on the MHA Board of Trustees for a decade and was chair during the Board’s 2011-12 term. His peers in Massachusetts healthcare consider Deschene to be a very forward-thinking, innovative leader, who had the foresight to see how recent transformational changes to healthcare payment and delivery systems would affect the institutions he ran and the patients they served. Wellforce’s Board announced it would appoint an interim leader shortly and begin a national search for a new CEO. His colleagues at MHA wish him a happy retirement.