After returning from attending medical school at the University of Denver, he was disappointed by the facilities and the thinking in Seattle's hospitals, particularly those related to germ control and surgical techniques.

[12][13] After a decade, Swedish began expanding outside Seattle and King County with its lease of Stevens Hospital (founded January 26, 1964) Edmonds on September 1, 2010,[14] and the opening of a brand-new campus in Issaquah in July, 2011.

In 2012, Swedish and Providence announced that the two hospital systems would form an alliance, with both organizations citing their own staffing challenges caused by budget shortfalls as the reason.

[19] Around the same time of the merger announcement, Swedish also stopped performing elective abortions “out of respect for the affiliation,” and offered to instead underwrite a Planned Parenthood center adjacent to its Seattle hospital.

[20] During the 2022 abortion protests, Swedish issued a statement clarifying that it is not bound by the Conference of Catholic Bishops’s Ethical and Religious Directives and would continue to offer birth control.

[19] During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the hospital administration threatened to fire an anesthesiologist for wearing a surgical mask while walking in the hallway.