Hoag Hospital’s President Decides to Remain in Post

The president of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Michael Stephens, said Wednesday that he has changed his mind about quitting his job and taking a post in Seattle.

“After further evaluating numerous personal considerations, it became clear I should stay,” Stephens, 52, said in a statement. He declined to be more specific when reached for comment later, other than to say it involved family and “my own personal feelings.”

Last month, Stephens said he would resign his post of 19 years to become president of Swedish Health Services in Seattle, which runs two hospitals.

At the time, Stephens said he had reached a point where he felt he either had to change jobs or stay at Hoag for the rest of his career.

On Wednesday, however, Stephens said he is excited about implementing the hospital’s master plan and expanding outpatient services.

“I think we’ll get through the last hurdles,” he predicted.

Swedish Health spokeswoman Sally Wright said, “It was a difficult decision for him. I think when you are looking to leave a community you have been entrenched in . . . it’s difficult.”

The chairman of Hoag’s board of directors, Albert Auer, said that no special efforts were made to persuade Stephens to stay, such as offering a pay hike.

“It’s always been my feeling that and theory that if someone wants to better themselves, they are entitled to do it,” Auer said.

With his decision to stay, “we were gainers in this situation,” Auer said. Finding a successor to Stephens, someone who could steer the nonprofit 416-bed hospital through the changes gripping the health-care industry, would have been extremely difficult, he added.