Michael Dowling, the CEO who helped transform Northwell Health into the state’s largest health system and led it through the COVID-19 pandemic, is stepping down after 23 years at the helm, officials announced Wednesday morning.

Dr. John D’Angelo, the current executive vice president of the health system’s central region, will take over in October. Dowling will continue as an adviser at Northwell with the title CEO Emeritus.

In an interview with Newsday on Wednesday, Dowling said he had worked with D'Angelo for 20 years.

"He's a great guy," Dowling said. "He is the person that I think is the right person for the organization."

Dowling will continue with Northwell for another two years but D'Angelo will take over the day-to-day operations.

"I'll be around," Dowling said. "It will give me a chance to focus on some things that I really want to focus on like mental health, educational leadership development ... this gives me the chance to talk about some of the national issues that I think are very important that people need to be speaking about."

Before he was appointed Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reiterated debunked theories about vaccines and safety. The government has also slashed funding for research and ended some flu vaccine public awareness campaigns.

Dowling said some of the health care policies coming out of the federal government are "potentially disastrous for health care."

"You can't obliterate science and discovery and hope that you can progress into the future," he said. "We are where we are today because of the science that has generated all these innovations in every area of healthcare that you can imagine over the last 50 years."

Dowling has referred to his journey from dockworker to health care CEO as the immigrant's classic American Dream. He grew up in hardscrabble Knockaderry, a village in County Limerick, Ireland, in a home with a thatched roof and no electricity. Despite his father's disapproval, Dowling came to the United States to work and save money for college. He earned his undergraduate degree from University College Cork and his master's from Fordham University in the Bronx.

He was a professor of social policy and then director of the Tarrytown Campus of Fordham University before spending 12 years in state government in the 1980s and '90s as state director of Health, Education and Human Services and commissioner of the state Department of Social Services.

Under his tenure, the health system formerly known as North Shore-LIJ, became Northwell in 2016. It now includes 28 hospitals across New York and Connecticut, employing 104,000 people. The majority of Northwell facilities are on Long Island, including North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, Huntington Hospital and South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore. It also operates Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.

Check back for updates on this developing story.