An American accountant has been appointed as the Chief of Business Development for the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

Russell Gardner's nomination to the position, which was created last year to help the BHB with its business plan, is still subject to immigration approval.

Mr. Gardner, who has more than 30 years experience in senior financial, strategic planning, and corporate development leadership with several major health care systems, will replace Neil Rolfes who served in an interim capacity.

In this position Mr. Gardner will work as a fully integrated member of the BHB Executive Management Team and report directly to the CEO David Hill, who yesterday said he was thrilled to have Mr. Gardner join the team.

He said: "I am extremely pleased to welcome Russ to the BHB family. BHB is going through many changes at the moment and is focusing on building a sustainable, high quality healthcare service for the Island.

"This means we have to thoroughly research how best to invest so that we improve and enhance our services and equipment in a timely and cost-effective way.

"It gives me great pleasure to have someone with Russ' experience and qualifications onboard."

The position he stands to take-over, the Chief of Business Development position was created last year to help the BHB with research and business development skills at a senior level to develop the health services.

Mr. Gardner graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a BBA in Accounting and earned an MBA from Xavier University in Advanced Business Economics and is a Certified Public Accountant.

A BHB spokesperson yesterday also confirmed that his appointment was made with the help of consultants Kurron Shares. Last year the BHB entered the contract with Kurron America Shares for a cost of $11 million.

Kurron was tasked with recruiting healthcare administrators as well as helping with modernising the hospital wards.

The Ministry of Health took control of the contract from July last year until March this year, which was a total of $1,998,310.

For the next five years the BHB is required to take control of the payments, which this year means more than $2.5 million is required for the contract.