Executive Moves: Darryl Elmouchi Takes on COO Position at Corewell Health

Elmouchi details his first orders of business for the newly integrated health system, including the alignment of operational and clinical strategies.

Corewell Health launched in February 2022 when Spectrum Health and Beaumont Health merged to create a $14 billion, 22-hospital system serving patients in Michigan.

Over a year later, the system is gaining momentum as the organizations continue to integrate. To help in those efforts, the system recently announced the appointment of Darryl Elmouchi, MD, MBA, who previously served as president of Corewell Health West, to oversee the whole system's operations as chief operations officer.

Elmouchi, who has a background as a cardiac electrophysiologist and in numerous leadership roles including president of the Spectrum Health Medical Group and chief medical officer of Spectrum Health, will lead strategy, operations, clinical care delivery, and financial performance for Corewell's entire clinical enterprise and work to further integrate the system clinically.

Darryl Elmouchi, MD, MBA, COO, Corewell Health. Photo courtesy of Corewell Health.

In a recent interview with HealthLeaders, Elmouchi shares insights into his new role and the system's integration efforts so far. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

HealthLeaders: How will your new role as health system COO differ from serving as president of Corewell Health West?

Darryl Elmouchi: It'll be much more on how we work together across the state to ensure we're providing the highest quality care and at the most affordable prices. To do that, it requires a lot of teamwork. My prior role, which also required teamwork, was much more focused on local operations. It's a much bigger scope when you start thinking of the whole state.

HL: What will be your first order of business as COO?

Elmouchi: Even though I'm very familiar with the organization, it's going to be to listen and learn. As much as I might know about the west, I want to learn a whole lot more about both the east and the south, we call it, which is down near the St. Joseph/Benton Harbor area, to make sure that I make the best and most informed decisions working with the teams.

HL: How does your background as a physician define the way you lead in the C-suite?

Elmouchi: I practiced as a cardiologist for many years [and] became increasingly good at complaining about what didn't seem like it was working well within healthcare. My wife, who is also a physician, one night said to me, 'Have you done everything you can to try to make it better?' More or less reminding me that complaint doesn't really solve a problem. That really kind of knocked me over and made me realize that looking for solutions was key, not just picking out the problems.

I firmly believe that having spent so many years at the frontlines caring for patients—seeing what it's like for our nurses, technicians, for everybody working here—informs every decision I make and grounds me to what our true mission is. And that's probably different than those who have not been clinical before.

One of the things about being a practicing physician for so many years, that has weighed on me, is it's really important to have the 'why' of a decision. As a physician, as a nurse, you know why you're doing something to help someone. You've seen the data, you understand. I've often found, dating back many years ago, that decisions were often made where I never knew the why, and so I questioned them. One of my firm beliefs [is to be] incredibly transparent in communication, and trying to explain the why as best I can. So even if someone doesn't always agree with every decision, they can understand how we got to it.

HL: How has the integration of Beaumont and Spectrum into Corewell Health been going so far? How will your appointment help in that integration?

Elmouchi: We've hit all the internal targets we set. But in most integrations, that kind of easier part of working together is in the kind of corporate functions, like finance, and HR, and IT, [and] so forth. What I really hope to help achieve is to have our clinical teams and our operational teams work more closely together. That is going to be front and center as we work toward being on one electronic health record, which is our very aggressive and important plan to do that by the middle of next year.

HL: What pain points are you looking forward to addressing as COO?

Elmouchi: Ultimately, every healthcare organization in the country all the way down to a private practitioner's office has their way of doing something that worked for them over time. And I'd like to help bring us together to our way of doing something. The pain points to get there are going to be breaking through some of those historical norms that might have worked in the past but won't work as well in the future. It's tough because that's convincing people that there might be a better way to do things together.