How Mark Garvin Looks to Steer Banner Health's Expansion Strategy

The Arizona-based health system's new SVP of Partnership and Venture Development sees the value of collaboration and being proactive instead of reactive.

As healthcare adapts to a changing landscape and the presence of disruptors, the idea of “traditional” healthcare is being replaced by a network of collaborations and partnerships focused on the consumer’s care journey.

To Mark Garvin, Banner Health’s new Senior Vice President of Partnership and Venture Development, that’s fertile ground for the value-based care system of tomorrow. And it’s his job to steer the Phoenix-based health system in the right direction.

“We can play in this space differently than the Amazons, differently than other retail organizations, simply because we’ve created these clinically integrated networks,” he says.

Garvin has a background in ambulatory care—as chief operating officer for United Surgical Partners International from 2001 until 2020, he oversaw the company’s evolution from a start-up to the nation’s largest developer of short-stay ambulatory surgery centers and hospitals. Now he’s guiding the six-state, 33-hospital network toward a future where care is accessed in many locations.

Banner wants to expand its service offerings and geography “beyond just the acute [care] side,” he says. “What we want to do is grow the diversification as a percentage of the overall business in things that are outside of the traditional acute” care spectrum.

Expanding that footprint means looking beyond “traditional” healthcare to new ideas. Garvin says Banner should not only be open to innovation—they should be leading the way.

Mark Garvin, SVP of Partnership & Venture Development at Banner Health. Photo courtesy of Banner Health.

“Why wait for someone else to come to the table?” he asks. “Why not be part of the creation, either [as] an owner or a partner or in a joint venture?”

One example of the joint venture is Banner Health’s partnership with Select Medical, which began in 2018 and has led to the development of four private rehabilitation hospitals and outpatient physical therapy programs and services at dozens of Banner Physical Therapy centers. The hospitals, which are run by Select Medical under the Banner name, address a growing need for inpatient rehabilitative care for patients who are recovering from strokes, traumatic brain injury and other medical conditions.

“These are people that wake up every single day and this is what they worry about,” Garvin says of Select Medical. “They’re experts. They know how to operate. They know how to develop. They know how to grow. It is their wheelhouse.”

Garvin sees more of those types of arrangements in the future, as health systems and hospitals look beyond their own walls to transform care delivery. He says Banner has to be strategic, as the health system attracts a lot of innovators and start-ups that are looking for Banner to “put them on the map.”

“Is there something real here that we think makes a material difference?” he says. “Does it give us the ability to do things that perhaps in the in the past took a lot more labor and time to get accomplished? We have to ask those questions.”

“We have to do due diligence,” Garvin adds, noting that a good idea now might very well be outdated in 12 months. And while the pace of innovation (think AI) might force healthcare leaders to rush into things, he wants to slow it down a bit.

“Don’t get in too much of a hurry,” he says. “That’s where the mistakes will come in.”