Marjorie Bessel, MD

Current Responsibilities
Dr. Marjorie Bessel is the VP for Clinical Integration and Regional Chief Medical Officer for the Arizona East Division of Banner Health, serving on the system-wide clinical leadership team, with direct supervisory responsibilities over the Chief Medical Officer’s in the AZ East division, Banner Home Care and Hospice, Banner Pharmacy, Banner Health Transfer Services and leadership for Post Acute Services. Banner Health has been named by Thomson Reuters as a top 5 health system three of the past five years. The ten hospitals in the Arizona East region include a 655-bed tertiary care facility three specialty focus facilities (cardiovascular, pediatrics and oncology), two facilities located in a rural Phoenix community and one in rural Gila County, AZ and two general acute care facilities. Bessel has held an interest in physician leadership since first starting in medicine, seeing it as a way to affect patient care for a broader number of patients than her one-on-one patient days could produce. One of Dr. Bessel’s top priorities for the Banner Health is clinical integration across the continuum. Her interests are integrating technology and clinical decision support to improve outcomes of quality, safety, efficiency and patient experience. .

Prior Experience
During her role as CMO for Banner Gateway she led the opening of the new, state-of-the-art, fully electronic facility in September, 2007. She led the medical staff in the big-bang adoption of a complete EMR. She subsequently led this big-bang adoption at Banner Desert. She implemented a fully employed, geographically-staffed hospitalist model which utilizes new communication tools and midlevel providers to facilitate optimum efficiency and quality of care. She has led system-wide efforts in a variety of areas in addition to clinical IT and hospitalists including emergency preparedness, Ebola preparations and meaningful use. She has been part of executive teams for recent acquisitions of three hospitals into her region. Her clinical background is as a hospitalist and she maintains active staff membership and privileges at Banner Gateway Medical Center.

Education, Awards and Professional Affiliations
Dr. Bessel earned a BS in biology, magna cum laude from Syracuse University, after which she attended Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois. At Rush Medical College Dr. Bessel was presented the James B. Herrick award for most outstanding performance in internal medicine. In 1993, Dr. Bessel completed her residency in internal medicine at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois. She continued for an additional year in the capacity as Chief Resident, a position considered to be a high honor at that institution.