Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium replaces president and CEO Valerie Davidson

Valerie Nurr’araaluk Davidson, the president and chief executive of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, “has transitioned out” of her role after three years, the consortium said Tuesday.

Natasha Singh, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s executive vice president, will serve as interim president and chief executive, the organization said in a prepared statement.

The consortium said that Singh has worked alongside Davidson the past two years and is former general counsel of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, a tribal organization in the Interior. In that role, she helped oversee the joint venture that built and staffed the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center in Fairbanks, along with the construction of subregional and village clinics, the consortium said.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Davidson was leaving the position. Davidson and Singh could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

The tribal health consortium operates programs and services at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage along with Southcentral Foundation, a health organization serving Alaska Natives in much of Southcentral Alaska.

The consortium is the largest tribal health organization in the U.S. and is Alaska’s second-largest health employer with more than 3,000 employees.

It reported operating revenues of $866 million last year, according to its 2023 annual report. The report, noting that the consortium provides care at the Alaska Native Medical Center and specialty field clinics, listed more than 53,000 emergency visits, more than 53,000 inpatient days, 31,000 specialty clinic procedures, and 1,500 births in 2023.

Davidson was appointed as the consortium’s president and CEO in 2021. She had previously served as commissioner of the former Alaska Department of Health and Social Services under then-Gov. Bill Walker, an independent. She also briefly served as Walker’s lieutenant governor in 2018, becoming the first Alaska Native woman to hold that role in the state.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, a former House speaker and an independent from Dillingham in Southwest Alaska, said he’s stunned by the transition involving Davidson and didn’t have an indication of why it was happening. He said that as Alaska’s health and social services commissioner for about four years, Davidson was critical to expanding Medicaid in the state and played a leadership role in other complicated issues.

”My trust and confidence in her abilities is the utmost,” Edgmon said.

Davidson was named chief executive of the consortium during a difficult time: She replaced Andy Teuber, who had served for more than a decade as consortium president and CEO before abruptly resigning in February 2021. His resignation came shortly after a former consortium employee accused him, in a letter to the organization’s board, of abusive behavior, harassment and coerced sexual encounters. Teuber went missing and was presumed dead after his helicopter crashed a week later near the Barrier Islands between the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak.

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium during Davidson’s tenure improved financially and made two of the largest investments in health facilities in its history, it said in its statement. The consortium improved access to patient housing and secured over $1 billion for the construction of sanitation systems in rural Alaska, according to the statement, and it also improved the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital star rating at the Alaska Native Medical Center for the first time in the hospital’s history.

“Three years ago, Valerie was brought in to support the transition of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium out of a leadership crisis,” ANTHC Board Chair Kimberley Strong said in the statement. “She brought stability and set the organization on a bright path to achieve our strategic goals.

“Valerie supported the remarkable transformation of our organization, attracted new talent to join our workforce, and made meaningful improvements, such as investing in the Alaska Native Medical Center’s Emergency Department, necessary to sustain this progress,” Strong said.

[Alaska Native Medical Center begins expansion of emergency department amid growing pains]

Katherine Gottlieb, former longtime president and chief executive of Southcentral Foundation, said Tuesday afternoon that she was just finding out about the news and didn’t know why the change was occurring.

She said the chief executive role at the tribal consortium is important and comes with lots of responsibilities. The Alaska Native Medical Center provides tertiary care for Alaska Native people across the state, she said, referring to care that often follows a referral from a primary or secondary provider.

“That is a critical role to the Alaska Native community,” Gottlieb said.

“Transition is always hard for a large organization like that,” she said. “And in a transition, nothing gets to stop. The work continues to go on.”

Strong said in the statement that “the board has full confidence in Natasha’s ability to lead the organization during this transition.”

The Daily News’ Alex DeMarban reported from Anchorage, and reporter Sean Maguire contributed from Juneau.