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Lifetime of leadership; Scott Parker led Intermountain's rise to top of nation's integrated systems.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Ed Finkel

Scott Parker always knew he wanted to lead hospitals. But he never envisioned spending 23 years as the founding president of one of the first and most successful integrated healthcare delivery systems and becoming a national and international leader during challenging times for the profession.

"I wish I knew. It's a mystery to me,'' Parker says, when asked how his ambitions evolved. "You look back at the end of your time of service and say, `the heavens aligned from the beginning'. ... It's just a gradual progression of opportunities that come.''

Colleagues and friends from Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health Care-which Parker led as it expanded to a peak of 22 hospitals and formed its own insurance company and physician division-say he blended wisdom and humility. He listened to all points of view and recognized when others knew more than he about a given subject, but he also could assert himself, without fanfare, when necessary.

"It was his foresight that made (Intermountain) into a meaningful geographic healthcare system,'' says William Nelson, president of the system, which now has 20 hospitals in Utah and Idaho; he was chief financial officer and executive vice president under Parker. "It was his vision that created the health plan and the employee physicians group.''

"By anybody's measure, it's one of the top two or three integrated delivery systems in the country,'' adds Stanley...

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