Governance Advisory Faculty Members: Biographies

>Chris Cutler
>Martin Merry
>Bob McGowan
>Gary Daniels

Chris Cutler

Chris Cutler founded Cutler & Co., an independent consulting practice, in 1991. He specializes in the governance, strategic thinking and integration of healthcare organizations and the design of delivery systems.
His services include:

Developing strategic plans and service strategies for hospitals and physician groups; Designing and directing strategy retreats for hospital trustees, management teams, and medical groups seeking to reposition or affiliate their organizations;

Evaluating governing board performance, practices and structures for healthcare organizations; Conducting trustee education seminars; and Facilitating affiliation and merger discussions among hospitals and other providers such as VNAs, hospices and birthing centers.

With thirty years of healthcare management experience, Chris has worked as a senior executive in university and community hospitals with responsibility for the operations of hospitals, free-standing, diagnostic centers and long term care facilities. He has worked extensively with trustees and senior executives of hospitals and healthcare associations on governance performance, organizational strategies, affiliations, and mergers.

He has also worked with physician groups on ownership and governance issues, organizational culture, repositioning strategies and managed care contracting. He was instrumental in developing Massachusetts' first PPO and served as its Treasurer.

Chris graduated Harvard College and holds a Master's degree in Healthcare Administration from the University of Minnesota where he later served on the clinical faculty. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and served the New England Healthcare Assembly on its Board of Trustees and as its Chairman.

Martin Merry

Martin Merry brings to his professional engagements a unique background of "Corporate America," clinical practice and health care consulting experience. He received his undergraduate degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, based upon a unique "campus-factory shop floor" collaboration between Cornell and Corning, Inc. He moved from this experience to earn his medical degree at McGill University in Montreal, subsequently completing residency training in internal medicine, with an additional year of psychiatry residency at Dartmouth and Albany Medical Centers. Dr. Merry then practiced general internal medicine for 8 years with a group practice founded by two Mayo Clinic-trained senior partners. During these years he developed the role of Medical Director for Quality, the first medico-administrative position at St. Joseph's Hospital in Elmira, NY.

Building upon his practice and medical staff leadership experience in responding to both JCAHO and New York State regulation, Dr. Merry began in 1981 a career devoted to consultation and education in the areas of quality, medical staff leadership, and organizational transition. Presently he has worked with more than 1000 health care organizations in all 50 United States and internationally. Clients have included hospitals, physician group practices, managed care plans, multi-hospital systems, health care law firms, consulting firms involved in a variety of health management issues, the U.S. military health system (Project Director, US Department of Defense, Civilian External Peer Review Program, 1987-94), and the Joint Commission. He has developed educational programs for the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the American College of Physician Executives, the American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Medical Group Association, the Medical Group Management Association, the Veterans Administration, the Indian Health Service and numerous state and regional professional associations. His practice keeps pace with vital issues emanating from the emergence of health care's information revolution, including the impact of e-commerce on health care delivery. His present areas of focus include governance and leadership issues of organizational transition, physician liaison and leadership development, integration of quality systems into health system/network development, and creative approaches to address the national issue of "patient safety/errors in medicine."

In addition to his consulting and educational work, Dr. Merry continues in his part-time positions as Associate Professor of Health Management and Policy at the University of New Hampshire, teaching the quality management course in the Masters of Healthcare Administration program. He serves also as Senior Advisor for Medical Affairs for the New Hampshire Hospital Association, a position created in 1994 to foster effective communication and collaboration between clinical and managerial professionals as they pursue health systems developmental issues.

In 1997 the American College of Physician Executives recognized Dr. Merry with its Rodney T. West Literary Achievement Award, citing his article, "Physician Leadership: The Time is Now!" as 1996's "most significant literary contribution to the advancement of the medical management profession."

Bob McGowan

Bristol Group clients recognize Bob for his ability to work in highly sensitive political situations and for the integrity and the values that are consciously reflected in his work. He has a unique ability to create an environment of trust and openness within which organizational leaders are able to address difficult issues in a straightforward manner. His work is grounded in a fundamental commitment to increasing the healthcare industry's awareness of and commitment to its healing mission.

Bob's consulting projects reflect his considerable expertise in organization and management. His work includes strategic planning, the formation of multi-hospital alliances, management restructuring, operations improvement, opinion surveys of physicians and hospital staff, organizational assessment, and senior management team development. Increasingly, he is finding himself in the role of negotiator and mediator as efforts are made to develop consensus among multiple stakeholders.

Bob also has a special interest in governance and has helped many Boards to increase their overall effectiveness. His experience conducting Board assessments and Board retreats is unique and his work has been referenced in national journals.

During the past few years, Bob has been heavily involved in helping hospital and healthcare system leadership develop and implement strategies related to primary care network formation. His unique facilitation, negotiation, and mediation skills have helped a number of clients achieve some very successful outcomes in extremely difficult situations.

Bob works with his clients as an organizational strategist and frequently functions as a facilitator of complex organizational change processes. He commonly provides one-on-one coaching to organizational leaders who are attempting to develop the support of key constituencies for changes that are taking place. He also helps to manage conflicts that develop within organizational decision-making processes.

Prior to becoming a healthcare consultant, Bob served as Director of a multi-hospital consulting and education service. He also worked for a number of years as a psychologist, during which time he had management responsibility for the development of a community mental health program.

Bob holds an undergraduate degree in Economics and a Master's Degree in Human Development. He is also a graduate of the Advanced Organizational Development Program at Columbia University. During the past ten years, he has given over 100 lectures at state, regional, and national healthcare conferences and conducted numerous Board, Medical Staff and Management retreats.

Gary Daniels

Gary joined Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker in 1999 with more than 30 years of healthcare leadership experience. Gary specializes in strategic plan development that is responsive to community need, design of appropriate governance structures, and the development and implementation of provider networks, mergers, and integrated delivery systems. Gary is a graduate of Northeastern University, with degrees in engineering and business administration.

Gary previously served as President of Northeast Health (NEH), the parent corporation of Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, ME. During his tenure at NEH Gary worked with the health system to consolidate a very diffuse governance of several boards into a strong system board with unified committee structure. With this new governance model the Chairman of the Board and Gary worked with the Board of Trustees, Management, and Medical Staff to develop a new system strategic plan, a five-year plan for improving information services, an employee incentive compensation program, and the community planning for a new retirement community. Prior to joining NEH, Gary worked for the North Shore Medical Center (NSMC) in Salem, Massachusetts where he held a variety of positions including CEO of two of the system's hospitals, as well as Director of Planning and Director of Marketing.

 

 

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