University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina announced Monday that Dr. David Herman, a physician leader with the Mayo Clinic, will join UHS as its president.

Herman currently serves as medical director of the Mayo Clinic Affiliated Practice Network. As UHS president, Herman will be responsible for the health system, including coordinating and integrating health care at all levels of service, from free community screenings and physician practices to local hospitals and tertiary medical care.

Dave McRae, chief executive officer of UHS, said the organization has been moving for some time toward a more integrated system of health-care delivery, and Herman will lead that integration.

“Dr. Herman has experience in building a mature, integrated health-care delivery system,” McRae said. “His leadership at one of the world’s premiere health-care systems will guide us as we prepare for this new world of health care for eastern North Carolina.”

Herman has significant expertise and experience consolidating and integrating physician practice networks, developing formal relationships with national and regional provider groups and building operational structures to serve those relationships.

As director of the Employee and Community Health Program at Mayo Clinic Rochester, Herman worked to develop programs in the community and in the public school system that address chronic illnesses and diseases.

Herman currently is a consultant in ophthalmology at the Mayo Clinic and a professor of ophthalmology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. Herman, with more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, served as a principle investigator for a National Institutes of Health grant studying ocular hypertension and glaucoma.

Herman said his decision to relocate to eastern North Carolina was based on great potential to unify a system of care that will be critical in the coming years.

“Few organizations are in the unique position of being able to build a true system of care to address the care needs of the populations they serve,” Herman said. “I am impressed with the people who make up UHS, and I am eager to work with the team to design, execute and demonstrate this new system of health care. I am honored and eager to have a chance to serve in this new capacity.”

Herman serves on the board of directors for the Mayo Health System and the board of directors for the Western Region of the Mayo Health System. He is a member of the Mayo Clinic management team. Herman also served as chairman of the Mayo Clinic Rochester Clinical Practice Committee, an executive position similar to the role he will assume at UHS.

He serves on the board of directors and the Strategy and Personnel Committees for the Institute of Clinical Systems Improvement, directing the development of guidelines and protocols of care for preventive services, acute and chronic care.

Herman was recently named to the board of trustees of Ronald McDonald House Charities, the international charity that sponsors and supports Ronald McDonald Houses worldwide.

Herman is a native of International Falls, Minn. He received his bachelor’s degree in physiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his medical degree from Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minn. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education and was senior staff fellow at the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. In 2000, he received a master’s degree in medical management from the University of Texas-Dallas.

McRae said Herman will join UHS this summer.