In the past Marc Boom, MD, often quoted Bill Gates on our tendency to overestimate the amount of change in the short term and underestimate the amount of change over the long term. That was before the COVID pandemic flipped that axiom on its head, driving health-system executives like Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist, to achieve overnight what in pre-COVID times would have taken years.
“All of a sudden we went from 40 virtual patient visits a day to more than 3,000 at our peak.”
Despite the explosion of telehealth, virtual care and other seismic changes triggered by COVID, Houston Methodist did not change its core strategy, as Boom explains in our interview. Houston Methodist is comprised of its flagship academic medical center Houston Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, a research institute, seven community hospitals, a large primary care and specialty physician practice, a robust residency program and 24,000 employees plus thousands of affiliated physicians serving the Greater Houston area.
Boom, 54, earned an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Texas and an MD from Baylor College of Medicine before returning to his east coast roots to earn an MBA from Wharton. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and fellowships in geriatric and general medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to taking the top job at Houston Methodist Boom was executive VP of The Methodist Hospital, president & CEO of Methodist Diagnostic Hospital and president/CEO/medical director of Baylor-Methodist-Primary Care Associates, a network of primary care physicians.
His wife of 30 years, Julie, is a pediatrician at Texas Children’s Hospital and they have two daughters and a son. He is also a gourmet cook.