Mathis, Pinn and Plummer named to Hall of Fame

Three industry pioneers who shaped healthcare's future in dramatically different ways will be inducted into Modern Healthcare's Health Care Hall of Fame on March 13 in Chicago.

This year's honorees are Larry Mathis, the former longtime chief executive of the Methodist Hospital System in Houston; Dr. Vivian Pinn, a physician, professor and researcher who spent her career advocating for women's health issues and working to eliminate healthcare disparities; and the late Dr. Henry Plummer, a skilled clinician and innovator who was instrumental in founding the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. They all spent most of their careers serving one organization.

Mathis, now 72, spent 26 years at the Methodist system, more than half of them as president and CEO. He started at Methodist Hospital, where he served his administrative residency, and stayed with the organization for the rest of his career. He led a major expansion of the system, which upon his retirement comprised 16 member corporations and 37 affiliated hospitals in the U.S. and abroad, including facilities in Greece, Italy, Peru, Turkey and Venezuela.

He was also an early adopter of the patient-centered approach to healthcare delivery, focused on quality improvement and patient satisfaction. Methodist Hospital System would receive numerous national awards for its achievements.

Pinn, upon entering the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1963, was the only woman and minority student in her class. She would graduate with honors. Following a postgraduate fellowship at Harvard Medical School, she would serve in a variety of clinical and academic roles at Tufts University in Boston and several of its affiliated organizations, as well as Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Throughout her career she was focused on women's health issues, which ultimately led to her appointment in 1991 as director of the Office of Research on Women's Health, part of the National Institutes of Health. She would remain in the role for nearly 20 years. Pinn also was a mentor to many, particularly encouraging minority women to pursue careers in medicine and science.

Plummer joined the fledgling Mayo Clinic in 1901. He was a gifted physician but also recognized how technology, organizational design and even architecture could play a role in the healing process. Dr. William Mayo, one of the two brothers who founded the clinic, would later say that hiring Plummer was his “best day's work.”

It was Plummer who helped develop the concept of a comprehensive medical record at Mayo, a dossier in which all the information about a patient could be found in one place. He is also credited with designing the system that led to the hallmark of the clinic, an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to medical practice.

Plummer died of a blood clot in 1936 at age 62.

The three inductees will be honored at a gala held on March 13 in conjunction with the American College of Healthcare Executives' 2016 Congress on Healthcare Leadership, set for March 14-17. They also will be profiled in the March 14 issue of Modern Healthcare and online.

Mathis, Pinn and Plummer join 100 other industry luminaries who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame since its inception in 1988. The hall is permanently housed at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, America's first hospital.