LifePoint Hospitals has picked an HCA veteran to be its first in-house national government relations point man.

David Critchlow has been named vice president of government relations for the Brentwood-based hospital chain. In his newly created role, Critchlow will manage federal and state government relations and formulate legislative priorities across all of LifePoint’s affiliated hospitals.

Critchlow comes to LifePoint from HCA, where he was director of government relations and coordinated the company’s relations with the American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals.  He has in the past also worked at Bailey Political Consulting and was a legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch.

“In this era of healthcare reform and increased regulatory requirements for hospitals, public policy and government relations has never been more essential,” said LifePoint President and CEO Bill Carpenter. “David is an excellent addition to the LifePoint team. His unique expertise will be invaluable as we partner with state and federal leaders on strategic healthcare issues that affect our hospitals, employees, affiliated physicians and patients and work to advocate for policies that will help us achieve our mission.”

LifePoint also has created a new senior director of hospital strategic planning and hired Melissa Waddey to fill it. Waddey, who has been COO of HCA’s Summit Medical Center and Skyline Medical Center, will work with LifePoint executives in 17 states to build local-market strategic plans.

In addition, LifePoint said it has recruited John Kerndl to be CFO of its National Division, which runs 11 hospitals in Alabama, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. Kerndl comes to LifePoint from Vanguard Health Systems, where he was CFO since 2007 of three hospitals in the Phoenix area. Before that, he spent four years at a number of Community Health Systems.