Hospitals

Cleveland Clinic exiles Strand, Duffy find life after hospital system

Cleveland Clinic's former Chief Operating Officer left the health system in July 2009 under vague pronouncements of a "mutual departure" and plans to "pursue other opportunities." What has Strand, who was the Clinic's second-highest-paid employee in 2009, been up to since then?

The last time spouses David Strand and Dr. Bridget Duffy made news in Cleveland, they were heading out of town.

Strand, then the Cleveland Clinic’s chief operating officer, and Duffy, its chief experience officer, left the Clinic in July 2009 amid a cloud of unanswered questions, vague explanations and – for Strand at least – a golden parachute. His $527,000 severance payment vaulted him to second in Cleveland Clinic compensation in 2009, trailing only CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove.

Regardless of the circumstances of their departure, Strand and Duffy certainly seem to have found success in their post-Clinic careers. They started a San Francisco consulting firm that was later sold. And while Duffy continues to run that organization, Strand has moved on with a healthcare consulting company.

Duffy also continues to build her own personal brand as a patients-first innovator.

Through a spokeswoman, Strand and Duffy declined interview requests.

Soon after leaving the Clinic, the couple started ExperiaHealth,which  aims to help hospitals improve the patient experience. That, incidentally, was Duffy’s charge when she came to the Clinic to as its first ever chief experience officer. “ExperiaHealth works with organizations around the globe to create strategies that restore the human connection in healthcare,” the company explains on its site.

Clients include major heavyweights like Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente and HCA, according to a statement from Vocera Communications, which acquired Experia for an undisclosed sum in November.

Duffy stayed on as Experia’s CEO after the acquisition, though it’s unclear exactly what, if any, Strand’s current role is with the company. He’s listed on Experia’s team page, but no title is associated with his name.

A company spokeswoman, who works for an outside public relations firm, wasn’t clear on Strand’s role with Experia.

The news release announcing the Experia sale noted that Strand would “continue his San Francisco-based healthcare consulting and management services business, KenwoodHealth Group.” The company apparently doesn’t have a website, though the domain names kenwoodhealth.com and kenwoodhealthgroup.com remain ripe for the picking.

As COO for the Clinic, Strand led day-to-day operations at the Clinic’s main campus and managed business units in Northeast Ohio and Florida. In public comments, the Clinic would only at the time allow that the Strand and Duffy’s departure was “mutual” and that the two “wanted to move on, move back home to California.” When reached by the Plain Dealer shortly after their departures were announced, the two ex-employees declined comment.

An internal memo that the Clinic sent to employees said only that the couple left “to pursue other opportunities.”

As with nearly all breakups, there was obviously lots more going on behind the scenes than anyone would say publicly. Are departures ever truly “mutual?” If the break really was mutual, why did Strand get a half-million-dollar-plus severance payment? Why leave so soon, when Strand and Duffy had joined the Clinic just two years earlier? If the two left the Clinic intending all along to start their own company, why not just say so from the beginning to head off the inevitable speculation that arises from the use of such vague language as “other opportunities” and “mutual departure”?

From the outside looking in, Strand had a pretty sweet setup, so why would he want to leave without having secured something better? He was, after all, among the top executives at one of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals, and it’s not like the money was bad. In 2009, his compensation was $1.1 million, making him the highest-paid non-MD on the Clinic’s staff, and sixth-highest paid employee overall. Factoring in a $527,000 severance payment, Strand ranked second.

Strand joined the Clinic in July 2007 as its chief emerging businesses officer responsible for developing new revenue streams in areas outside the Clinic’s core focuses of medicine and medical research, as well as overseeing projects like the health system’s growth in Abu Dhabi. He stepped into the COO role in August 2008, holding onto it for less than a year.

In Cleveland Clinic’s post-Strand era, the health system has apparently chosen to eliminate the chief operating officer role. “There was a restructuring after [Strand] left,” Cleveland Clinic spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said.

William Peacock III took part of the job, becoming the hospital’s chief of operations, overseeing the health system’s facilities and services. Pediatrician Dr. A. Marc Harrison, previously titled the director of medical operations, was appointed chief medical operations officer in the weeks after Strand and Duffy’s departure.

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