If Grady Memorial Hospital fails or flourishes, people will now know who to blame or thank.

Grady board chairwoman Pam Stephenson on Friday announced the long-awaited appointment of a 17-member board charged with pulling the state's largest public hospital out of a financial mire that threatened its existence.

The heads of some of metro Atlanta's top businesses and institutions will serve on the board of the new private, nonprofit Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation, along with some members of the old Grady board. Officially the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, the old board chose the new board.

The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which has been the inspiration and the champion of management change since a chamber task force proposed it last fall, got 10 of the 11 appointments to the board it requested.

Not on the final list was chamber nominee Alana Shepherd, founder of the Shepherd Center, the Atlanta hospital specializing in brain and spinal injuries. It was unclear why Shepherd was not named.

"There's a great deal to be done," said appointee Robert Miller, a health care lawyer. "Much of it involves money — money Grady doesn't have. It's been difficult for the board that's been running Grady and it's going to be difficult for the new board."

Shortly after the appointments were announced, about 20 members of the Grady Coalition, a community group that has opposed the management change, began to yell from the audience, "We vote no. We vote no." The board adjourned abruptly.

The authority is giving up control of day-to-day operations but will continue to hold the health system's real estate. Sandra Holliday, a retired hospital administrator, Michael Hollis, a lawyer, and Dr. Daniel Whitner will serve on both boards.

So will Stephenson, who also took over in January as chief executive of the hospital. She is also a Grady Foundation board member, raising concerns about her growing presence in hospital management.

"I feel we're moving forward," she said after she announced the appointments. She said the transfer will help generate "state, regional and philanthropic money" for the hospital.

Retired Ebenezer Baptist Church pastor the Rev. Joseph Roberts is one of three community representatives chosen by Stephenson, with Pierluigi Mancini, a psychologist, and Aasia Mustakeem, a real estate lawyer.

A.D. "Pete" Correll and Michael Russell, who co-chaired the metro chamber task force that recommended the management change, are on the new board. Correll is chairman emeritus of Georgia-Pacific; Russell is chief executive of H.J. Russell & Company.

Correll's name has surfaced frequently as a possible chairman of the new board. The nonprofit board has scheduled its first meeting for Monday and is expected to select officers and begin the process of transferring management control to the nonprofit.

Grady officials say it could take one to six months for the nonprofit to get federal nonprofit status and begin making policy and financial decisions.

Other members of the new board include Dr. Louis Sullivan, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary; Atlanta School Superintendent Beverly Hall and Cousins Properties CEO Thomas Bell, who was also on the chamber task force. All were chamber nominees.

The naming of the board is a monumental step in a year of intense examination, debate and discussion about Grady's future that reached from the metro chamber to the halls of state government.

The change in management brings with it the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations and government funding for Grady, which has lost money 10 of the last 11 years.

With close to a million patient visits a year, Grady furnishes much of the area's indigent care, provides metro Atlanta's only Level One trauma center and serves as a teaching center for Emory and Morehouse schools of medicine. But its heavy load of uninsured patients outweighs its public funding.

The chamber task force recommended the management change as a way to build trust in the health system's management and attract more money. Correll and Bell have said they have promises of $200 million in private funds for capital improvements at Grady, with the possibility of raising $100 million more.

The state is also expected to increase funding.

Members of the new board say they realize they face a tough challenge but are committed to making Grady the best it can be while keeping it fiscally sound.

Grady can provide a safety net for the poor while staying sound financially, said appointee Robert Burroughs, a DeKalb County real estate lawyer.

"I believe it can be done," he said. "And I don't think the other members would take it on if they didn't agree."