Newswise — CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – August 23, 2017 -- Modern Healthcare has named Dr. William L. Roper, CEO of UNC Health Care, dean of the UNC School of Medicine and vice chancellor for medical affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in Health Care for 2017.

This is the sixth time that Dr. Roper, 69, has been included on the list.

To compile the list, the magazine’s editors selected 300 finalists from 6,800 nominations submitted by readers. Then, readers cast 74,000 ballots for their top candidates among those finalists, accounting for 50 percent of the final list and rankings. Modern Healthcare’s editors accounted for the remaining 50 percent.

The top slot on this year’s list was awarded to three Republican Senators – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona – who each voted against their party’s bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and played a pivotal role in changing the direction of the debate.

Dr. Roper was previously director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), served on the senior White House staff, and was administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (the agency which was responsible for Medicare and Medicaid at the time).  He was a White House Fellow in 1982-1983 and served as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Director of the White House Office of Policy Development during the administration of President George H.W. Bush (1989-1993). Dr. Roper served as Dean of the UNC School of Public Health from 1997 to 2004, when he was selected as UNC Health Care’s CEO.

Dr. Roper is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.  He is a member of the board of directors of DaVita, Inc., a member of the board of directors of Express Scripts Holding Company, and a member of the board of directors of the National Quality Forum.


About UNC Health Care
UNC Health Care is an integrated health care system comprised of UNC Hospitals and its provider network, UNC Faculty Physicians, UNC Physicians Network, the clinical patient care programs of the UNC School of Medicine and nine other hospitals and hospital systems across the state. Additional hospital entities include UNC Rex Healthcare, Chatham HospitalJohnston HealthPardee HospitalHigh Point Regional HealthCaldwell MemorialNash Health Care, Wayne Memorial and UNC Lenoir Health Care