Tom Koutsoumpas Wants to Ease the Ordeal of Dying

Tom Koutsoumpas was 25 when he experienced death up close for the first time. He was working as an aide to Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh when Bayh’s wife Marvella died of cancer at 46, in 1979. “She was hooked up to everything in this sterile hospital setting, and it was a really stressful struggle,” he recalls. “It had a tremendous impact on me.”

Today, Mr. Koutsoumpas, 69, is one of America’s leading advocates for better end-of-life care. Since 2018 he has served as president and CEO of Virginia-based Capital Caring Health, which joined forces this month with Florida-based Chapters Health Systems to create the nation’s largest nonprofit hospice and advanced-illness care provider.