Quorum Health CEO’s vision for growth and resilience
Quorum Health, a 12-hospital system based in Tennessee, is at the forefront of rural healthcare transformation in its region. In a recent conversation we had at Becker’s CEO + CFO Roundtable, Quorum CEO Chris Harrison shared with us his vision for growth, innovation and patient-centered care, offering insights into how Quorum is navigating industry challenges and leveraging technology to improve outcomes.
Quorum Health’s mission and reach
Quorum Health is a 12-hospital system in Brentwood, just outside of Nashville, and is a primary rural health operator across nine states. Quorum’s portfolio includes six critical access hospitals and six acute care hospitals, along with clinic operations and outpatient services.
“Our broad geographic footprint means that Quorum is often the only hospital or the only provider in many rural areas,” said Harrison. “But we’re often the largest employer and a kind of economic lifeline for those communities that we serve as well.”
Strategic priorities: growth and resilience
Looking ahead to 2026, Harrison emphasizes that growth is a top priority. He says Quorum’s growth will be both organic through expanding physician practices, outpatient facilities and partnerships and inorganic via acquisition.
“We want to continue to grow,” said Harrison. “Quorum has been on a little bit of a journey in terms of restructuring and optimizing the portfolio of our hospitals. The M&A landscape in acute healthcare is very active right now as a lot of independent hospitals and systems try to figure out how to navigate the new federal budget and all the regulatory dynamics and rising costs.”
Quorum is also preparing for changes in federal policy and reimbursement structures and levels. Harrison points to the upcoming Rural Health Transformation Fund and the $50 billion that’s coming, starting in 2026. As a rural operator, Quorum expects to qualify for its share of those funds. Harrison and Quorum are developing a strategy to determine how they will use that money to invest in innovation, AI technology and growth.
Embracing innovation and technology
Healthcare has traditionally been conservative in adopting new technologies, but Harrison, like many others in today’s C-suite, sees a paradigm shift with artificial intelligence. He believes industry leaders are increasingly seeing the benefit of artificial intelligence in terms of efficiency, allowing them to upskill and uplift revenue cycle staff in their careers. For Quorum, the focus is on making staff more efficient, not replacing jobs.
“We aren’t necessarily looking at replacing jobs,” said Harrison. “We’re just looking at how do you make the employees you have more efficient and strategic and how do you help your clinicians do what they were trained and went to school to do – just care for patients and provide a better clinical experience.”
Quorum is deploying AI in several administrative areas, according to Harrison, including clinical documentation and revenue cycle management. Quorum has implemented an AI scribe system to help automate documenting the entire patient encounter for complete and accurate charge capture. Harrison says he’s excited about the potential for autonomous claim coding to revolutionize mid-cycle revenue workflows.
“On the clinical side, the AI is listening to the conversations in the EHR and then turning that structured and unstructured clinical information into medical coding, which is the language of billing,” said Harrison. “There’s a lot of autonomous coding and a lot of AI being put in place to help get cleaner bills and get bills out faster and get it to the payers, reduce denials and have better financial outcomes.”
Transforming the patient and clinician experience
Harrison is passionate about improving the patient journey, emphasizing that Quorum Health is hyper focused on delivering the absolute best patient experience possible. He believes technology is essential for streamlining processes such as registration, scheduling and payment that impact the patient experience and for helping patients navigate their bills with greater ease and familiarity. For clinicians, these innovations reduce administrative burdens, allowing them to dedicate more time to direct patient care and ensure that patients feel truly listened to during their visits.
“Patients want the same kind of experience from healthcare that they get when they pay all their other bills, whether that’s through their online banking, pay text or however it is,” Harrison said. “And having a physician who can spend more time, whether that’s five, 10 more minutes with the patient because now we’ve taken off a lot of the administrative documentation work.”
Building true partnerships for innovation
Harrison believes the future of healthcare innovation, especially for rural providers with fewer financial and human resources at their disposal, lies in developing strong strategic partnerships.
“A lot of the relationships of the past were a true kind of vendor-client relationship,” said Harrison. “Now we look to partner at a deeper level. We’re focused on finding the companies that will partner with us in very fundamental ways, ensuring that our strategies are aligned and that the outcomes we’re trying to achieve are aligned.”
Chris Harrison’s vision for Quorum Health as its strategic leader is clear – to drive growth through innovation and acquisition while maintaining a relentless focus on the patient and clinician experience. By embracing technology and forging deep partnerships, Quorum is setting a new standard for rural healthcare – one where efficiency, empathy and community impact go hand in hand.
Chris Harrison serves as Quorum Health’s chief executive officer with a healthcare background spanning nearly two decades, He has held leadership positions with HCA Healthcare, LifePoint Health and Surgery Partners. Harrison joined Quorum Health in July 2020 as senior vice president of Financial Planning & Analysis. In April 2022, he was named Chief Financial Officer. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds a Master of Accountancy from Belmont University and a Bachelor of Science from Tennessee Wesleyan University.
