A Boston Globe Spotlight Team report on Steward Health Care
A Boston Globe Spotlight Team review found the Steward Health Care hospital system plagued by staggering neglect at the hands of executives, leaving Steward’s more than 30 hospitals among the worst, the most troubled, in the country over the last five years.
Coverage
Dec. 31, 2024
Turning patients into profit: How Steward embodies the risk of private equity’s push in American health care.
An investigation into Steward Health Care reveals a cautionary tale about the role of private equity in American health care and the corporate push for profits — often at the expense of patients.
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Dec. 14, 2024
Softened reports. Lax oversight. How state officials enabled Steward’s rise and fall.
The Globe Spotlight Team found Steward benefited from insufficient scrutiny from the Healey administration and other elected officials until the company imploded and it was too late.
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Nov. 25, 2024
Federal investigators served warrants, seized phones of two top Steward Health Care executives, sources say
The move marks an escalation in the sprawling federal criminal probe into the national health care chain.
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Nov. 25, 2024
Steward Health Care raided the coffers of its in-house malpractice insurer, leaving claimants, doctors in limbo
Executives at Steward Health Care have treated their in-house malpractice insurer, TRACO, like a piggy bank, pulling cash from it at will, and severely depleting the assets meant to cover claims of medical harm.
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Nov. 14, 2024
Former House speaker John Boehner appears in federal courthouse amid grand jury probe into Steward Health Care
Several Steward board members have been summoned or subpoenaed to answer questions as part of the sprawling federal probe.
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Oct. 8, 2024
House of cards: How a real estate firm and Steward Health Care grew in tandem, in part by keeping Steward’s shaky finances secret
The Boston Globe Spotlight Team has spent months investigating this unusual partnership to lay bare another critical piece of the Steward saga.
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Oct. 5, 2024
Ralph de la Torre oversaw Steward’s collapse. Meet the corporate board that OK’d many of his decisions.
Corporate boards are supposed to hold the CEO accountable. In Steward’s case, it did anything but, according to a new Spotlight investigation.
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Sept. 6, 2024
They died in hallways. In line. Alone. Their deaths are the human cost of Steward’s financial neglect.
On the whole, Steward’s more than 30 hospitals have been among the worst, the most troubled in the country over the last five years, according to several measures.
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Sept. 3, 2024
Inside the secret financial dealings of Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre
A new Spotlight investigation reveals that as Steward Health spiraled toward bankruptcy, the CEO used its bank account as his own.
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Tools
Sept. 6, 2024
Read the stories of patients who died after seeking care at Steward hospitals
The Spotlight Team identified at least 15 instances in which Steward Hospital patients died after failing to receive professionally accepted standards of care due to equipment or staffing shortages.
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Sherlynn Brownlee, 80
Died March 22, 2024, Glenwood Regional Medical Center (West Monroe, La.)
Kyle Fleetwood, 38
Died Jan. 11, 2024, Holy Family Hospital (Methuen)
Richard Fingleton, 81
Died Dec. 30, 2023, Holy Family Hospital (Methuen)
Sungida Rashid, 39
Died Oct. 18, 2023, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center (Brighton)
Dec. 14, 2024
Timeline of the state’s lax oversight of Steward Health Care
State officials spanning multiple administrations took a deferential approach toward Steward Health Care, softening critical reports and overlooking clear warning signs.
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Sept. 19, 2024
Jet travel, yacht adventures, and more. How Steward’s CEO used corporate funds as the company crumbled.
A Globe analysis rounds out a globetrotting portrait of how Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre and other executives spent their time — and the company’s money — in the months and years before it went under.
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Sept. 6, 2024
Database: Federal deficiency reports for Steward Health Care’s hospitals
In the past five years, Steward hospitals accrued more than 300 deficiency findings from federal hospital regulators.
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Sept. 6, 2024
Timeline: Steward Health Care kept expanding, even as the situation at hospitals turned dire
See key moments in the explosive growth and ultimate collapse of Steward Health Care.
Read moreSubmit a tip
Do you have information about problems at Steward hospitals? Send us an email at [email protected] or submit tips here.
Credits
- Reporters: Mark Arsenault, Jessica Bartlett, Elizabeth Koh, Liz Kowalczyk, Hanna Krueger, Chris Serres, Rebecca Ostriker, and Catherine Carlock
- Data reporter: Yoohyun Jung
- Contributors: Khadija Sharife of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
- Editors: Brendan McCarthy, Mark Morrow, and Gordon Russell
- Visuals editor: Tim Rasmussen
- Photographers: Kayla Bartkowski, Andrew Burke-Stevenson, Barry Chin, Erin Clark, Suzanne Kreiter, Jacob M. Langston, Joanne Rathe Strohmeyer, Jessica Rinaldi, David L. Ryan, John Tlumacki, and Craig Walker
- Director of photography: Bill Greene
- Photo editors: Kevin Martin and Leanne Burden Seidel
- Design: Ashley Borg, John Hancock
- Development and graphics: John Hancock
- Digital editor: Christina Prignano
- Copy editor: Mary Creane and Michael J. Bailey
- Quality assurance: Nalini Dokula, Meredith Stern, and Michael Johnston
- Audience: Cecilia Mazanec, Jenna Reyes, and Peter Bailey-Wells
- Audience editor: Heather Ciras
- SEO strategy: Ronke Idowu Reeves
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