By Marsha Austin, The Denver Post Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Nov. 11--Joseph Swedish, chief executive of Centura Health, Colorado's largest hospital system, will leave Jan. 1 to take the helm of Michigan-based Trinity Health.
Swedish pulled Centura from deepening financial losses in the late 1990s, orchestrating a turnaround that produced record profits for the hospital system and fueled one of the nation's largest hospital construction booms.
During Swedish's six-year tenure, Centura built Parker Adventist Hospital south of Denver and launched expansions at Avista, Porter and Littleton Adventist hospitals. Centura also is reportedly considering relocating its Saint Anthony Central Hospital to a new campus.
'Over the past six years, Joe has led our organization to unprecedented achievement,' said Mike Fordyce, chair of the Centura Health Board of Trustees and chief administrative officer of Catholic Health Initiatives, a Centura parent. 'Under his leadership, Centura has improved its financial stability, strengthened its voice on health-care policy issues and made enormous investments in quality, facilities and service to the community.'
But without the gains Centura also made in improving medical care and strengthening its faith-based culture, 'it would have been a hollow transformation,' Swedish said. 'What I'm most proud of is the transformation of our culture to one that is known for clinical excellence and organizational excellence.'
Swedish said Trinity Health, one of the nation's largest Catholic health-care systems, recruited him.
'I wasn't looking,' he said.
The opportunity was too good to pass up, Swedish said.
Trinity Health is one of the nation's largest Catholic health-care systems. It has operations in seven states, including 45 hospitals, 384 outpatient facilities, numerous long-term-care facilities, home health offices and hospice programs, a health-care architectural firm, a physician practice consulting company, and two health plans.
Centura Health operates 12 hospitals, eight senior living residences, medical clinics and home-care and hospice services. The nonprofit Centura provides care to more than half a million people a year and is Colorado's fourth-largest private employer with more than 11,000 associates. Centura is owned jointly by Catholic Health Initiatives and Adventist Health System.
The two organizations will begin the search for a new Centura CEO soon, officials said.
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