Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1208031
T M C N E W S . O R G 30 PULSE | You're a medical doctor with an MBA who is now running the largest not-for- profit health system in south- east Texas. When's the last time you wore your white coat? DC | I have privileges in three of our facilities—in Memorial City, the TMC and The Woodlands. I actually have a few of my old MD Anderson patients that I still see. I don't ever want to completely give up seeing patients. I have a great deal of loy- alty to those patients I saw a number of years ago, so if they call and tell me they want to see me, I will see them. But the last time I regularly saw patients was when I was at UCLA, from 2004 to 2007. PULSE | It's fair to say you've been honing your management and business skills over the past two decades. Do you come from a family of doctors? DC | My father is 90 and he still asks, 'Son, didn't I send you to medical school?' And then he laughs. I say, 'Yeah, dad, but I'm just helping patients in a different way.' Everybody in my family has been in finance, so I'm the black sheep. When we get together for family celebrations and dinners and holi- days, they're all talking about what's going on with the market. PULSE | Many patients and consumers are concerned about health care waste—unneces- sary tests, unnecessary office visits, unnecessary paperwork, and so on. As you get to know Memorial Hermann Health System, where will you look to trim costs? DC | What worries me when we have these sorts of broader discus- sions or when I'm watching week- end news shows is that people push this question toward blame. … Well, this is all the fault of the hospitals and physicians. Or, This is all the fault of the pharmaceutical compa- nies. To me, that's just nuts. We all need to engage together to address the big issues. Costs are too high. Access is too poor. There are huge differentials among populations in terms of access to care. All of us need to look at what we can be responsible for and focus on those things and look for points of com- mon interest with other people and then pursue those together. PULSE | As you note, access to care is a major issue facing all health care providers. How do we solve that? DC | Everybody has a smart phone now. Other sectors of the economy have done a much better job than we have in terms of using technol- ogy to engage consumers. We have Six Questions for Dav Q& Six Six A Que Que