Larry Lewellen has spent the past 24 years working for Ohio State. On Tuesday, he starts a new position as the vice president of care coordination and health promotion at the OSU Medical Center.

“I have been in the Office of Human Resources at Ohio State for 24 years,” Lewellen said. “The opportunity to do something different with my career and stay at Ohio State, that in itself is very exciting.” Lewellen was the vice president for human resources. His base salary will increase to $290,000 from $255,000, according to Columbus Business First.

For the last 10 years, Lewellen said he has spent most of his time inside and outside of the university talking about health care, so taking this new position made sense.

“I was exploring what I might do in my last five to eight years, and health self-improvement, as well as health care, is just a huge area of passion for me,” Lewellen said. “I believe that being part of a culture of health is so inspiring, so invigorating.”

Dr. Steven Gabbe, CEO of the OSU Medical Center, praised the hiring of Lewellen.

“Larry will be a great asset to the medical center’s continuing efforts to provide efficient and high quality health care,” Gabbe said in an e-mail to The Lantern. “The practice of medicine is rapidly evolving and Larry’s familiarity with both the university and medical center gives us a distinct advantage.”

One of Lewellen’s new roles will be helping the medical center become an Accountable Care Organization, which is a federal program for hospitals and health care providers to work together to raise the quality of patient care and reduce costs, said an announcement from the OSU Medical Center.

Lewellen will continue to manage the OSU Health Plan and “will develop initiatives to boost employee participation in Your Plan for Health and to encourage patients to take an active role in the management of their own care,” the announcement said.

Kimberly Shumate will replace Lewellen on an interim basis in the Office of Human Resources.

Despite looking forward to his new job, leaving his old job is not all easy for Lewellen.

“I am going to miss the people in that office tremendously,” Lewellen said. “I work a lot with the faculty leaders and university staff leaders, who I respect tremendously and I am going to miss a great, great deal.”