Harvard Vanguard CEO set to depart

The Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates chief executive who engineered its merger with four other physician group practices is leaving to head a large hospital network in Minnesota.

Kenneth Paulus, 46, will actually vacate two posts -- chief executive of Harvard Vanguard and chief executive of HealthOne Care System.

HealthOne is the nonprofit network of physician groups Paulus helped create in 2004 through the merger of Harvard Vanguard -- which has about 500 doctors -- with Dedham Medical Associates, South Shore Medical Center, and Southboro Medical Group.

The resulting organization has more than 700 doctors who care for 500,000 patients, making it the second-largest physicians group in the state and giving it considerable bargaining clout with insurance companies.

Plans are underway for an $8.5 million expansion of Harvard Vanguard's electronic medical records system into HealthOne's smaller physician groups, and a branding and marketing campaign aimed at Massachusetts residents. The network also is geared for further growth. Another physicians practice, Granite Medical Group, joined HealthOne this year and executives are in discussions with other prospective members.

''HealthOne was Ken's vision. It exists because of his dogged determination," said Eugene Wallace, Harvard Vanguard's chief financial officer, who will serve as acting chief executive while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted.

When Paulus arrived at Harvard Vanguard in 2000, the group was facing a potential crisis. Two years earlier, it had severed a link with its former HMO affiliate, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. But 93 percent of the group's patients were still insured by Harvard Pilgrim, which had slipped into state receivership because of financial problems.

''When he first came in, our first priority was staying in business," said Dr. Gene Lindsey, a cardiologist and chairman of the Harvard Vanguard board.

Paulus was well-positioned to lead the group. He had deep connections in the Boston healthcare market from his previous job as chief executive of Partners Community HealthCare Inc., the state's largest physician group with about 1,000 internists and 3,500 specialists.

''He made Harvard Vanguard a very high-performing group, with high member satisfaction, good outcomes, and great levels of efficiency," said his former boss, former Partners Community HealthCare chief executive Ellen Zane, who is now chief executive at Tufts-New England Medical Center. His departure, she said, ''is a loss for Boston."

Paulus has accepted a job as chief operating officer of Allina Hospitals & Clinics, a nonprofit network of 11 hospitals, and more than 50 clinics operating throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.