Kevin Hicks, president and CEO of Overland Park Regional Medical Center, is leaving the hospital to lead another one of HCA Midwest’s operations: Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., HCA Midwest announced Thursday.

As leader of the Overland Park hospital, Hicks played a key role more than a decade ago in efforts by HCA – then known as Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. – to buy a 50 percent stake in Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

The company already had opened Mt. Oread Medical Arts Centre at the southeast corner of Clinton Parkway and Kasold Drive, and later would launch an attempt to build its own for-profit hospital at the northwest corner of Sixth Street and Folks Road.

Lawrence city commissioners rejected the company’s $20 million hospital plan in December 1996. LMH later purchased the Mt. Oread site, which today is known as LMH South.