Providence Well being officials claimed in an e mail to spot wellbeing providers Friday that Providence St. Mary Health-related Center’s main govt, Susan Blackburn, is leaving the clinic.
No clarification was give for Blackburn’s departure.
The announcement came 3 times just after the U.S. legal professional for the Jap District of Washington, Vanessa Waldref, broke the information that the Walla Walla clinic has agreed to pay $22.7 million to solve allegations it fraudulently billed point out and federal well being treatment programs for medically needless neurosurgery procedures between 2013 and 2018.
The actions of two neurosurgeons utilized by St. Mary throughout that time were at the coronary heart of this scenario, the greatest at any time in this area, according to Waldref.
The situation started in January 2020, when the former healthcare director of neurosurgery at Providence St. Mary Health-related Middle filed a criticism in federal court.
Comparable concerns arose at Swedish Neuroscience Institute in Seattle — owned by Providence — in 2017, when a Seattle Instances investigation exposed a variety of internal considerations about affected person security.
Right after The Moments investigation was revealed, Swedish’s CEO and the neuroscience institute’s top rated surgeon, who confronted practically 50 inside problems in 16 months of his arrival, resigned.
Underneath Blackburn’s leadership, St. Mary has been lauded for educational and community programs, like 1 supplying Walla Walla Neighborhood Faculty nursing pupils the possibility to keep on hands-on finding out all through the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to steering the hospital via the wellbeing care disaster of the pandemic, Blackburn has served on region boards such as Providence St. Mary Foundation and Walla Walla YMCA.
A Washington State University graduate, she’s been with the medical center for 22 years, according to her qualified profile.
In 2011, Blackburn was promoted to chief working officer following several years as vice president of human resources and support providers.
She is being changed by Reza Kaleel, who has been the chief government officer at Kadlec Regional Clinical Centre, according to Joel Gilbertson, chief executive of the Washington and Montana region of Providence overseeing 13 Providence amenities together with Richland and Walla Walla, and Scott O’Brien, main running officer for the same location, in their memo.
Kaleel has a “track file of success and deep awareness of each Catholic wellbeing care and the culture of Kadlec,” they mentioned in the announcement.
Also in their concept, Gilbertson and O’Brien explained that, in the weeks to appear, the very best organizational structure for the Walla Walla and Tri-Towns hospitals will be identified.
“For all but a handful of management staff associates with new reporting associations, our day-to-working day functions and shipping of superb treatment by our caregivers will continue on unchanged. We will share particulars as a new organizational construction will come into concentration,” Gilbertson and O’Brien mentioned.
Officials at St. Mary did not instantly return a ask for for remark.
Details from The Linked Press and The Seattle Moments was integrated in this report.
