Dr. John Jay Shannon (File/Dallas Morning News)
The chief medical officer during Parkland Memorial Hospital’s years-long safety crisis is now overseeing one of the nation’s most famous health institutions.
Dr. John Jay Shannon was promoted Friday to interim chief executive at Chicago’s Cook County Health & Hospitals System. That puts him over John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, inspiration for the television show ER.
Shannon has been there less than a year as a high-level clinical administrator. He temporarily replaces the man who hired him. Dr. Ramanathan Raju, who is taking a job in New York, said last year that Shannon’s role in Dallas hadn’t troubled him.
That sentiment remains. After Friday’s promotion, the Cook County hospital board chairman told reporters Shannon tried to fix Parkland’s problems, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Shannon had acknowledged “spectacular medical failures” at Parkland when he was first hired in Chicago.
The Tribune reported Friday that “Shannon said he learned from the problems at Parkland, which he attributed in part to attempts to increase the volume of patient care and improve efficiency at the hospital, moves that he said led to lapses in safety.”
