Three questions with Garri Garrison: A glance back and a look at what’s ahead

Dec. 13, 2023 / By Garri Garrison, Kelli Christman

I’m sure the big question on everyone’s mind is: What can you tell us about the planned future health care company? 

We are really excited to finally be able to share that we’ve chosen a name for our new planned, independent health care company spin off! Solventum originates from two words: solving and momentum. “Solving” captures the company’s dedication to finding breakthrough solutions. “Momentum” symbolizes swifter, nimbler innovation. The new name represents how the independent health care company will focus on solving big health care challenges and emphasizes the tremendous impact it can make on the world.

Our HIS team is energized and excited about the opportunity to be a part of Solventum! 3M’s commitment to using science to create innovative solutions to problems has helped us grow our ability to support revenue cycle, clinicians and payers. With Solventum, we look forward to being an even more agile and responsive company that can help quickly innovate solutions to our client’s biggest challenges. Our new CEO, Bryan Hanson, said it best, “As we build this new company, Solventum will embody our mission of enabling better, smarter, safer health care to improve lives.”

As we get closer to our spin date in the first half of 2024, we’ll be in close communication with our clients so they know what to expect. In the meantime, if our clients have any questions, they can work through their sales rep.  

Looking back at 2023, what trend had the biggest impact on our clients and what was your favorite memory from the year? 

Even though we’ve mostly come out of the crisis days of the COVID-19 pandemic, our clients are still facing tremendous headwinds and challenges as they try to recover and find a “new normal.” High labor and supply costs and quality staffing shortages are the biggest difficulty our clients are facing right now. Either we personally have been in a situation where we’ve needed medical attention, or we’ve had a close family member or friend. And we know that it takes a special person to serve in the health care industry. We are grateful for the individuals who have chosen to serve others in this capacity and our hope for 2024 is that the market stabilizes so these providers can focus on what matters most to them: providing quality patient care. We’re committed to working alongside our clients to find solutions that help them get back to their patients. I think AI will be a big driver in relieving some of the administrative burden they face and we are working to harness that power to help drive change. (More on that next!)  

One of my favorite memories from 2023 was our annual 3M CES event in Atlanta. It is always my favorite time of year, not only to see our clients in person, but we learn so much from each other, I truly enjoy the dialogue. We had two incredible keynotes this year and were able to celebrate our 3M Summit Award winners. You can check out the list here.   

Mark your calendars for 3M CES 2024, in … drumroll … Dallas, Aug. 12 – 15! More details coming soon, including speaker submissions, so be on the lookout. 

What is the biggest trend our clients should be aware of for 2024? 

I think generative AI will continue to dominate the headlines and conversations in health care. It is going to change our industry, and in some ways, it has already had a tremendous impact. We are embracing the technology, but are also committed to mitigating risk. We firmly believe that when deployed responsibly, AI has the power to improve workflows and reduce manual labor … all of which get our health care workers back to doing what they love: spending more time with patients.  

AI proactively brings information to our fingertips that previously took many steps to track down. Now it can be seamlessly integrated into a workflow. It’s much more of a push than a pull method, which still allows the provider to be in control, but with more proactive information available to help support the best care decisions possible.  

ICD-11 is another trend in 2024 that we’re working to prepare our clients for, especially outside of the U.S. We started a series on our Inside Angle blog more than a year ago to help our clients prepare for this change. Even though for most countries, ICD-11 isn’t going to happen next week, there are things that you can do today to help prepare your organization and your staff for the transition.  

And speaking of global, Mike Ristau just did a great Inside Angle blog post about our presence and growth around the world. Make sure to check it out.  

I want to thank our clients and our partners for all the work they’ve done in 2023 to better the lives of those around them. Health care is a challenging industry and we are so lucky to work with incredible people who are dedicated to improving health care. And a special thanks to our 3M HIS employees who go above and beyond every day to ensure our clients have the tools they need to provide the safest health care possible. We look forward to all the excitement 2024 will bring!  

Garri Garrison is division president for 3M Health Information Systems.  

Kelli Christman is marketing communications manager at 3M Health Information Systems.