Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center named Stanford Hospital and Clinics chief medical officer and IT guru Dr. Kevin Tabb as its new president and CEO Tuesday, only a few weeks after the Boston Globe reported the hospital was negotiating with Tabb.

Tabb, 47, is set to start Oct. 17, and will succeed Eric Buehrens, who has been the interim CEO and president since the January resignation of Paul Levy.

"We received more than 150 nominations of distinguished health care leaders for this position, and we are confident we found someone who is the right fit for the times," Margaret McKenna, chair of the 15-member search committee at the Boston hospital, said in a statement.

Tabb, who led the clinical data services division with GE Healthcare IT before joining Stanford, is thought to have helped the Palo Alto hospital system set up its electronic health record system. When rumors of Tabb moving to Beth Israel first emerged, FierceHealthIt noted that HIStalk, a health IT blog, said he could be a "geeky kindred spirit for [Beth Israel] CIO John Halamka."

Tabb isn't just an IT guy, though: he has some military experience. At age 18, he enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces, and went on to attend the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem.

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