St. Francis-Emory Healthcare Names Bill Little CEO

St. Francis-Emory Healthcare has named Bill Little, MBA, as its new CEO, effective April 21. Little fills the post that has been vacant since CEO Robert Parker’s departure last month.

Little brings to St. Francis-Emory more than 30 years of experience in hospital leadership, including tenures as CEO at four different hospitals. He most recently served as CEO at Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center (Carolina Pines or CPRMC), which, like St. Francis-Emory, is part of the ScionHealth portfolio of hospitals.

During his eight-year tenure at the Hartsville, SC hospital, Little led an extraordinary turnaround that saw the facility advance from a Leapfrog “D” grade for patient safety to its current status of seven consecutive “A” grades and two consecutive years of earning Leapfrog’s “Top General Hospital” award, a prestigious honor bestowed upon roughly 30 hospitals nationwide each year.

“We are excited to bring one of ScionHealth’s top-performing CEOs to our largest community hospital,” said Russell Pigg, President of the Community Hospital Division at ScionHealth. “Bill helped build a culture and team at Carolina Pines that truly transformed the hospital into one of the nation’s best. He brings a wealth of experience to St. Francis-Emory and a track record for helping hospitals improve patient outcomes and experiences while aligning service offerings to best meet the community’s needs.”

While at Carolina Pines, Little led the hospital’s efforts to provide needed services where the community wanted them, close to home. The hospital recruited practitioners to build or expand service lines, recently opened a clinic in a neighboring community, and developed a partnership with a local nursing school to provide a loan-forgiveness program to nursing students who commit to working at the hospital.

CPRMC’s focus on quality and continuous improvement has been rewarded as the hospital was one of three ScionHealth facilities to attain the 2023 Overall Platinum Award, the highest honor bestowed as part of the company’s National Quality Strategy. In addition, Carolina Pines’ employed Medical Practice attained recognition in 2023 and 2024 as a Patient-Centered Medical Home from the National Center for Quality Assurance, and most recently became the first hospital in South Carolina to achieve Joint Commission certification for sepsis care.

Little noted that while it was extremely difficult to leave Carolina Pines, he is excited to take the next step in his career and lead ScionHealth’s largest community hospital.

“I’ve had a wonderful experience with a wonderful team at Carolina Pines, which makes leaving especially difficult,” said Little. “But we have the opportunity to do some amazing things here at St. Francis-Emory. This is an impressive health system with tremendous reach and impact in the area. We have extremely capable and willing team members and strong programs already in place, so I am excited to hit the ground running and work with my team to see how we can take our hospital to the next level.”

Prior to joining Carolina Pines in 2016, Little held CEO positions at St. Thomas Highlands Hospital (Sparta, TN), Highlands Medical Center (Sparta, TN), and Canon County Hospital (Smithville/Woodbury, TN).

He earned his MBA with an emphasis on healthcare administration from the University of Tennessee and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Tennessee Technological University.