Scott & White Healthcare President and CEO Alfred B. Knight, M.D. to Retire in 2011, Will Lead Foundation

TEMPLE, Texas, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Scott & White Healthcare Board of Trustees Chairman Drayton McLane announced today the future retirement of Scott & White Healthcare President and CEO Alfred B. Knight, M.D. Dr. Knight, who in 2000 became the first President and CEO for the merged hospital and clinic system now known as Scott & White Healthcare, will assume the role of President of the Scott & White Healthcare Foundation (Scott & White's philanthropic arm) upon leaving his current position.

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The Board also announced Dr. Knight will be succeeded by Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer Robert W. Pryor, M.D., MBA. Dr. Knight and Dr. Pryor will work in tandem during the next year to insure a smooth transition of leadership.  

"Scott & White will end its current fiscal year with excellent operational and financial results," said McLane. This is in great part due to Dr. Knight and the stellar leadership team he has built and directed in leading Scott & White's unprecedented growth. Dr. Knight's legacy to Scott & White is also one of building our reputation as a national model of care, one that enables Scott & White to provide the highest quality care to Texans across a 25,000-square-mile service area. This while never losing sight of Scott & White's mission: to provide the most personalized, comprehensive and highest quality health care, enhanced by medical education and research."  

"As co-chair of the search committee, I was pleased that we had such a strong field of extremely well-qualified candidates and that the Board arrived at a unanimous decision to select Dr. Pryor," said Andrejs E. Avots-Avotins, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of the Scott & White Clinic Board of Directors. "This has been a thoughtful and deliberate search process resulting in the selection of a successor who can build upon Dr. Knight's success and the tradition of physician leadership at Scott & White."

"It has been my honor to lead this great organization during the last decade of extraordinary growth in the 113-year history of Scott & White. Dr. Pryor is exactly the right leader to continue Scott & White's march to its Vision of being the most Trusted and most Valued name in American health care," said Knight. "I still have a lot of energy and interest in the future of Scott & White and am looking forward to the new role I will undertake with the Foundation."

Under Dr. Knight's leadership, Scott & White Healthcare has grown to become one of the largest integrated group practices in the nation, including 10 hospitals and hospital partners, more than 60 clinics, a health plan and multiple subsidiaries (including Scott & White Hospice and Home Care), with total staff exceeding 12,000, including over 1,200 physicians, scientists and health care providers.

A former chair of the VHA Texas Board of Directors, Dr. Knight, 64, was named to Modern Healthcare's 50 Most Powerful Physician Executives in 2010. At the height of the health care reform debate, he was invited to present to a national forum in 2009 in Washington, D.C. on the subject "How Do They Do That?; Low-Cost, High-Quality Health Care in America." Scott & White Healthcare was the only Texas health care system and one of 10 health systems from across the country invited to the conference. Dr. Knight led local efforts to build awareness of the issues surrounding reform by hosting a forum last year for business leaders in Temple, Texas.

Dr. Knight joined Scott & White in 1986 as a member of the medical staff in the department of obstetrics and gynecology. He became department chair in 1992, led the Graduate Medical Education program and in 1998, became the institutional medical director for Scott & White Clinic. In 1999, Dr. Knight became associate director of the Clinic Board of Directors. The following year, he was named President and CEO of Scott & White Memorial Hospital, Scott, Sherwood and Brindley Foundation and Scott & White Clinic. He is also President of the Scott & White Health Plan.

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Knight received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University. He is a professor in the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a Diplomat of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, with sub-specialty certification in maternal-fetal medicine.

A physician leader with a distinguished career in large group practice management, Robert W. Pryor, M.D., MBA, 59, has been Chief Medical Officer of Scott & White since 2005 and Chief Operating Officer since August 2007. Prior to joining Scott & White, he served as Chief Medical Officer at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The Temple, Texas native is board certified by the American Board of Pediatrics, as well as a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians and The American College of Critical Care Medicine. He is certified in Lean Healthcare from the University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Center for Professional Development. A graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Dr. Pryor received his medical degree from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He completed a pediatric internship and residency at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and a pediatric intensive care medicine fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He earned an MBA from Arizona State University and is a member of The American College of Physician Executives.

About Scott & White Healthcare (sw.org)

Scott & White Healthcare is a non-profit collaborative health care system established in 1897 and is the principal clinical teaching facility affiliated with the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, with a Temple campus that includes a four-year medical curriculum. Along with its 636-bed flagship hospital and clinic facility in Temple, Texas, Scott & White includes 10 other hospitals or hospital partners, and over 60 clinic locations throughout Central Texas. With total staff exceeding 12,000, including over 1,200 physicians, scientists and health care providers, Scott & White has become one of the nation's largest multi-specialty group practice systems.

SOURCE Scott & White Healthcare