A physician leader with international experience shares his views on healthcare's most daunting challenge, his plans for the health system's continued growth, and his experience as a cancer patient.
Marc Harrison, MD, had his dream job.
As a pediatric intensivist at the Cleveland Clinic, he thought he had achieved his calling helping patients one on one. But that began to change when he was put in charge of solving revenue challenges that were interfering with the Clinic's ability to add resources, such as increased intensive care unit staff and nurse practitioners.
"I started to poke around and saw we had some opportunities to bill for some of the work we were already doing," he says.
He was repeatedly put in charge of other initiatives afield of patient care, such as recruiting more partners. Or developing a pediatric critical care transport program. Success led him to a promotion to department head.
Then he received a bladder cancer diagnosis.
After successful treatment at the clinic, he says he refocused on expending all the energy he has each day because another is not guaranteed.
"People say cancer is a blessing. It is not, but you can make good things come out of bad things," he says.
Following multiple promotions which led to his most recent position as the first CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Harrison left the familiar and friendly confines of the Clinic when he was named president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare last May.
He fully took over following the retirement of his predecessor, Charles W. Sorenson, MD, 64, in mid-October. HealthLeaders recently spoke to Harrison as he prepared to take over for Sorenson, under whose leadership Intermountain gained a national and international reputation as an industry leader. The following transcript has been lightly edited.
HealthLeaders: What do you like about administration?
Harrison: At the time I started in it, all I knew about administration was that it feels really good to help systems get better so we can take care of patients better on a macro level. Although I still love seeing patients one on one, that macro view is really interesting and impactful.
HealthLeaders: What did the board say stood out about your candidacy?
Harrison: To be honest I never had that conversation with them. I gathered that physician leadership was something they were interested in and I was a clinical leader who also had business competency. I think my own personal set of values is highly aligned with Intermountain and given the way this organization lives its values, I suspect that was a big factor in choosing me.
Not to say the other candidates didn't have that too, but this idea of keeping people healthy, keeping care affordable, and being a model system. Those feel like my wheelhouse.
HealthLeaders: What led to your going overseas?
Harrison: I was chief medical operations officer with the Clinic at the time, and had relatively recently been treated for bladder cancer there. I was feeling particularly grateful for the care I received and loyal to [Cleveland Clinic President and CEO] Dr. [Delos "Toby"] Cosgrove.
When he asked if I would consider going to Abu Dhabi, I needed a good reason not to do what he asked. The bonus for me is that it was a great opportunity to learn an enormous amount.
HealthLeaders: What did you learn there that you probably wouldn't have learned had you stayed Stateside?
Harrison: Many great organizations, like the Clinic, can sometimes believe that all the smart people in the world are at their main campus. The Clinic is less affected by that given its history of hiring people from around the world, but even there it can be static. It's amazing to see that there are plenty of smart people outside, and they can get on board with a culture that is patient oriented.
HealthLeaders: Should we expect further brand extension for Intermountain, given your international experience?
Harrison: I'm not interested in brand expansion solely for such purposes. When we grow, it will be thoughtfully and on purpose. There are no immediate plans to place an Intermountain facility abroad, for example, but we already have Asian contracts for some of our precision genomic work.
If I were to guess, I would say the international activities will revolve around services, intellectual property and education. Dr. Sorenson will be leading our leadership institute and he and I both hope the individuals who graduate from there will be international as well as domestic.
HealthLeaders: On a macro level, what is the most daunting problem facing healthcare?
Harrison: It comes down to alignment. If we're going to take care of populations, how do you get the payer, provider, and physicians but also the patients aligned around staying well and using resources in a wise fashion? That's hard.
I really worry about how we'll get aligned with folks who are poorer or who have complicating or mental problems. One of our big areas of work is in integration of mental health, dealing with social determinants of health and how they impact utilization.
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HealthLeaders: What is your top goal at Intermountain?
Harrison: If we are going to ask people to exercise, they need to have safe places to do that. If we ask people to eat well, do they have access to clean food? To get plenty of sleep: are they working two jobs?
Several years ago Intermountain's 22 hospitals put in place subsidized "Live Well" meals for purchase. In the first year, they served about 10,000 meals. Last year we served 300,000. That's a drop in the bucket, but you have to chisel away at things and have a vision and we'll get there. Affordability is a part of alignment. I'm particularly interested in putting power in the hands of the patients.
Philip Betbeze is the senior leadership editor at HealthLeaders.