Thomas Smith MD
October 22, 2025
Seniormost Leaders for Academic Health and Community Health in place
Today the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), which provides 25% of hospital-based care across the state, announced the promotion of a longtime System leader as the organization’s inaugural Executive Vice President, Community Health Division. Thomas Smyth, MD has served as President of the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center (UM SJMC), a member organization of UMMS, since 2016 and was previously the medical director of the UM St. Joseph Medical Group.
This follows the decision earlier this year to elevate Bert O’Malley, MD, who for the past five years has served as President of University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s flagship academic hospital with two campuses in Baltimore City, to Executive Vice President, Academic Health Division, with responsibility for strategic academic partnerships across UMMS.
“These executive-level changes are important steps forward for UMMS as we pursue our core Mission, Vision and Values and continue transforming how we deliver the very best health care to our patients and communities,” said Mohan Suntha, MD, MBA, President and CEO of UMMS. “We have more opportunity and more responsibility than ever before to align our organization around the evolving needs and expectations of our patients, communities, and colleagues. This means delivering the safest, most compassionate care in the state, supported by productive, efficient, and nimble operations that meet people where they are providing care when, where, and how they expect it.”
Under Dr. Smyth’s leadership, UM SJMC has become a national leader in patient safety and quality. Trained as a urologist, he led the formation of Maryland Urology Associates, PA and served as its president ahead of a merger that formed Chesapeake Urology Associates, where he served as vice president.
In his new role, which he will begin in late November, Dr. Smyth will lead UMMS’ network of seven community member organizations and their affiliated locations, including clinics, and other patient-facing facilities. Presidents of UMMS’ member organizations will report to Dr. Smyth and will continue to remain as the senior-most executives responsible for providing outstanding care and efficient operations at their local facilities, now operating as a more integrated team, firmly united in the pursuit of shared goals.
“I am excited to work with the UMMS leadership team and our community member organization presidents to advance the System’s mission and vision through transformative change, enhanced operational integration and improved financial performance,” Dr. Smyth said.
As a result of Dr. Smyth’s promotion, Robin Luxon, RN, BSN, MBA, FACHE, has been named interim President of UM SJMC and will serve in this role during the search for a new permanent leader of the Towson hospital. Luxon joined UM SJMC in October 2020 following more than two decades at UMMS member organization UM Upper Chesapeake Health in Harford County and has worked tirelessly to position UMMS and UM SJMC for critical strategic growth. Luxon has served in several roles at UM SJMC, most recently as Senior Vice President, Clinical Integration.
At UMMC, Dr. O’Malley has made integration a defining focus of his tenure, bringing together leaders from the hospital, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Faculty Physicians, Inc. to create the first-ever Integrated Leadership Team governance structure, Joint Strategic Plan, and Joint Performance Plan. These efforts have strengthened coordination across missions and set the foundation for a unified, high-performing academic health enterprise, as well as created a unified commitment to advancing academic medicine, nurturing groundbreaking innovation and training the physicians of tomorrow.
“My leadership role at UMMC has always been at the intersection of providing the highest quality care and advancing our academic medicine mission,” said Dr. O’Malley. “This new, more formalized role further crystalizes the vital importance of our academic partnerships as a core part of the UMMS mission. I am excited about the opportunity to harness my personal passion for both clinical excellence, innovation and discovery to help strengthen Systemwide alignment.”
Bert O’Malley, MD
“Together, Dr. O’Malley and Dr. Smyth share the goal of enhancing operational, financial, and clinical excellence across our System,” Dr. Suntha added. “Excellence in patient access, patient experience, strong physician and clinician relationships, financial performance, resource allocation and regulatory compliance are the hallmarks of a great health system, and these well-qualified leaders have the responsibility of elevating our performance in each of these areas. These appointments complete our corporate senior management team and allow us to deepen our focus on making UMMS the safest health system in Maryland, strengthening our integration and growing in key areas and service lines, especially in ambulatory settings. This will result in a better state of care for Marylanders and everyone who counts on our System.”
About the University of Maryland Medical System
The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high-quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland, Baltimore who educate the state’s future health care professionals, UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit www.umms.org.
