For Howard Chrisman, MD, home is where the heart — and ambition — is.
A seasoned vascular and interventional radiologist, Dr. Chrisman dedicated 26 years to Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine before becoming CEO of the academic medical enterprise on January 1, 2023.
The system contains the 943-bed Northwestern Memorial Hospital, situated in the heart of downtown Chicago, a few blocks from Lake Michigan. For 13 years straight, U.S. News & World Report has ranked the flagship the No. 1 hospital in Illinois. Northwestern Medicine's reach has expanded throughout Chicago and Northern Illinois in the past decade, and it continues to grow with plans to open a 120,000-square-foot advanced outpatient care center in the city's Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side in 2025.
Dr. Chrisman has seen the system's growth firsthand. He previously served as president and COO of the system, as well as executive vice president of clinical operations and president of Northwestern Medical Group. He has also served as interim chair of radiology, anesthesia, pathology and surgery.
Since taking the helm, the 58-year-old New York native has largely remained introspective, striving to deepen his connection with the organization and understand it more thoroughly. During a mid-July interview from his office, Dr. Chrisman exemplified a hands-on leader — a physician who still treats patients and is as invested in daily operations as he is in the system's 10-year plan.
"The first thing I look at every morning is the system dashboard showing every metric across all performance criteria in our health system," Dr. Chrisman tells me. "I can tell you OR start times at NM Kishwaukee and patient lag time for our dermatology clinic in downtown Chicago."
Dr. Chrisman mentioned he occasionally texts leaders if a metric — block time utilization, start times, clinic fill rates — surprises him. But he describes his approach as that of a supportive colleague, not merely the top executive of an $8.7 billion health system.
"As a new leader, you want to set the tone and the culture. When I reach out to physician leaders, I get it. I'm still seeing patients. My start time isn't there sometimes, for a variety of reasons. So when I call them, it's like, 'I've noticed your physicians are wonderfully productive, they're busy, but the lag time is 70 days. How can I help?'"
This tenor appears to be working, with Northwestern Medicine showing improved NPS for both patients and the workforce while also posting a $352.3 million operating income in fiscal 2023 — the first year under Dr. Chrisman's leadership.
Then there's Northwestern Medicine's 10-year strategic plan, or what Dr. Chrisman calls NM 2035. It's centered on five tenets: patient experience; workforce wellbeing; community investment; research and discovery; and financial sustainability. Below is a brief overview of each:
1. Patient experience and expectations. Dr. Chrisman emphasizes the importance of continually improving the patient experience and managing expectations. This involves not only providing high-quality care but also ensuring that patients feel heard, respected, and well-informed throughout their healthcare journey. "The world we live in today is very centered around service," Dr. Chrisman said, "and how we meet and exceed our patients’ expectations in a meaningful way."
2. Workforce engagement and wellbeing. Northwestern Medicine is the third-largest private employer in Illinois, with more than 40,000 employees and 5,400 aligned physicians. Dr. Chrisman identifies the workforce as the most challenging aspect of the 10-year strategic plan, even though the system has seen improvements in net promoter scores and lower burnout rates over the past three years.
"Our job is to create confidence in our organization so that when you come in here, when you enter our doors, we've got you," Dr. Chrisman says. "We are going to take care of you. We can't get there if our workforce doesn't also feel that we care for them."
3. Community investment. "We touch the lives of approximately 95% of the communities in the greater Chicagoland area through both employment and clinical care," Dr. Chrisman says. Last fiscal year, Northwestern Medicine provided more than $1.45 billion in community benefits, including more than $1 billion in unreimbursed costs of providing direct patient care for those who are medically underserved and/or in need of financial assistance. The system has more than 200 ambulatory and diagnostic sites and 11 hospitals in four counties in Northern Illinois and surrounding Chicago. It seeks more opportunities to expand access, including 500,000 square feet of new ambulatory space.
4. Research and discovery. Northwestern Medicine is dedicated to breakthroughs that transform healthcare, according to Dr. Chrisman. Researchers at its affiliated medical school, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, secured $706 million in research funding and awards during the 2022-23 fiscal year—the largest amount in the school's history. "We are among the few elite academic medical centers in the country excelling in translating discoveries into clinical practice," Dr. Chrisman said, a reputation he seeks to further cement and elevate.
5. Stewardship of financial performance. The focus is on performing efficiently at the highest level to reinvest in the organization and the communities it serves, ensuring the fulfillment of obligations to patients, workforce and discovery initiatives. "How do we not only do the things that we're obligated to do with our patients and our workforce and communities and discovery, but also continue to perform at the highest level efficiently so that we can reinvest in our organization and communities?" Dr. Chrisman says.
Dr. Chrisman, now 18 months into his tenure as CEO, envisions a future where Northwestern Medicine is recognized for pioneering advancements in medical care, providing consistent and exceptional patient experiences, and leading innovations, including the integration of artificial intelligence in care delivery.
And while Dr. Chrisman discusses these endeavors with the tone of a supportive colleague, there is no mistaking his ambition for Northwestern Medicine is immense.
"There is no system in this country that can exceed what we're capable of doing," Dr. Chrisman said. “Our patient’s first mission is what drives us. The simultaneous nature of transforming health care while caring for each and every patient is what we strive to accomplish, and I actually think we will be recognized as doing it as well as anyone in the country."