Who: Anthony “Tony” Armada
Resigned as: CEO of Swedish Health Services, a five-campus system based in Seattle, after a Seattle Times report accused the health system of encouraging neurosurgeons to increase patient volume and perform unnecessary and invasive surgeries. The Times reported that the staff is overloaded as a result, and government data show the system has recently seen a rise in surgical complications.
Interim leader: Dr. R. Guy Hudson, a 10-year Swedish veteran and chief of physician services for Swedish's western Washington region, has been named interim CEO.
Open letter: Armada wrote in a Feb. 17 letter that Swedish has been “humbled and saddened” by the newspaper report. He acknowledged that the system failed Talia Goldenberg, a patient profiled by the Times who died from complications following spinal surgery. Her parents say the complications were the result of negligence on the part of the hospital and her physician.
Concurrent surgeries: The Times accuses Goldenberg's surgeon and others of performing “concurrent surgeries,” a legal but controversial practice in which a surgeon uses fellows to be able to perform multiple operations at once. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has called for an end to the practice.
