His 10-year commitment to a dangerous and demanding job as a paramedic with the Los Angeles Fire Department says a lot about West Cancer Center CEO Erich Mounce. It also helps explain the inner fire that drives him toward achieving his goal of offering the best care possible for Mid-South cancer patients.
That fire, along with his early determination to make a difference, forged a character that seems custom-made for the role that awaited him at The West Clinic in 2010. Under his helmsmanship, the clinic grew and blossomed into the West Cancer Center, a collaborative partnership with Methodist Healthcare and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
His success to date is represented in part by the newly opened West Cancer Center facility on Wolf River Boulevard, with its state-of-the-art approach to cancer treatment, as well as to design and equipment.
Mounce, who holds a master’s degree in health administration from California State University, left his first-responder role to hone his management skills during a 14-year term as CEO for a privately owned company that operated hospitals in St. Louis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. He was later invited by a former physician mentor to serve as CEO for Lakeside Comprehensive Healthcare in Glendale, Calif., a community healthcare organization that included a 105-physician multispecialty medical group, a 2,000-member IPA (independent practice association) and a Medicare Advantage Plan.
When his mentor succumbed to cancer and the organization was dissolved, Mounce was left jobless — and with painful memories of a meaningful life lost to cancer.
When the invitation came to lead The West Clinic in its plan to create a better way to care for cancer patients, “I knew it was fate,” Mounce said. “The timing was right; cancer was fresh on my mind."
He was also impressed by what he heard.
“Dr. (Lee) Schwartzberg and Dr. (Kurt) Tauer didn’t talk about money or income at all during our first meeting," he said. "They didn’t look toward a vision of how to create a better income for them and their doctors; they worked toward creating a better cancer program and a better delivery model in the community that they served. Having worked in so many different places where the reverse was true, it was very eye-opening and made the decision for me.”
(To this day, Mounce reportedly reminds people at every meeting and every opportunity, “Remember, guys, it’s all about our patients. That’s why we all are here, and that’s the most important thing.”)
Where the traditional medical referral method of cancer care had sent patients ping-ponging around town from one specialist to another, each with potentially different processes and billing methodologies, Mounce’s mission was to create a comprehensive care center where patients’ needs for all services, including medical, surgical and radiation oncology, increased clinical trials and more, could be met under one roof with minimum delay and maximum communication, including 25 monthly meetings of multidisciplinary minds concerning each patient’s care. The conferences ensure that everyone involved in each patient’s treatment remains on the same page.
“Creating a better journey allows us to eliminate some of the barriers to that care,” he said, “and hopefully start to make a dent in that unbelievably sad disparity we have in Memphis and Shelby County, where an African-American woman with breast cancer is twice as likely to die as a Caucasian woman — that’s just a tragedy.”
The toughest challenge he faced was getting disparate cultures to work together — academic cultures, community, physicians — and to believe it would succeed. “It’s taken us five years to get there, because it was such a fundamental change for this marketplace,” he said.
Along the way, Mounce has fostered community outreach efforts such as a mobile center that provided more than 500 free screening mammograms to the underserved last year and successfully identified cancers that might otherwise have gone undetected.
He has overseen the recent development of the University of Tennessee/West Institute for Cancer Research, a 501 (c) 3 entity with West Clinic founder Dr. William West serving as volunteer chairman of the philanthropic effort. The research foundation was kick-started by a $2.25 million donation of their own funds from West Clinic physicians dedicated to their mission.
He is also involved in Methodist’s expansion plans, including its $300 million investment in a new facility on the campus of the University hospital — 70,000 square feet of which “will be dedicated to creating the same kind of outpatient oncology journey that we’ve done in Germantown,” Mounce said. “We will be running it as our part of the collaboration.”
Still in early stages, the project has a target opening date of January 2019.
His short-term goals involve conversion to a new electronic medical record system this year, building a mid-level management team equipped with more tools and training to help provide “really great patient journeys” and constantly reviewing and improving operations.
“Change will always happen,” he cautions healthcare professionals. “If you don’t facilitate change, it will change you.”
Mounce credits his roots for the servant leader management philosophy he embraces: “I was a firefighter-paramedic because I wanted to develop a career of service. I think that really good leaders enjoy the service they’re doing. They’re not doing it to be the boss or the leader.”
He takes pride in changing the way cancer care is being delivered in Memphis — and in surviving as a Los Angeles firefighter-paramedic, which left him with great respect for police and firefighters. “I know what they go through!”
He’s also proud that he and wife Marla have raised five amazing children, the youngest of whom is graduating from Lausanne this year.
In his leisure time he loves to travel, enjoys red wine and is an avid, lifelong skier.
RELATED LINKS:
