Montage Health’s annual meeting marks a friendly handoff of its top leadership spot.

Sara Rubin here, thinking about the space certain institutions occupy in a community. When you think “hospital,” it might conjure someplace you go for an illness or emergency and then (hopefully) quickly leave. But in a small community like the Monterey Peninsula, a hospital can take on a status bordering almost on mythical, becoming not just a place for medical treatment, but also an economic driver and large employer, an educator, a volunteer hub, and in the unique case of Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, a destination for a milkshake.

That institutional status lends a certain air to the annual meetings of Montage Health, the parent company of CHOMP, Montage Medical Group, Aspire Health, Ohana and MoGo Urgent Care. The convenings draw hundreds of community members and the keynote speakers often have some cachet, such as Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. 

That kind of cachet is what got Steve Packer, the outgoing CEO of Montage, to introduce himself and his successor with a little self-deprecating joke on Friday, March 14: “Sorry folks, today it’s just me and the new guy.” 

Packer’s farewell address was accompanied by a photo slideshow of his life and the hospital’s trajectory. He spoke about growing CHOMP’s physical footprint, and also growing from CHOMP to an entire health system, creating Montage as an umbrella in 2016. He spoke about getting through the Covid pandemic, when “fear permeated the environment, and our staff stepped up.” But he also spoke as if something of a folk hero, formerly a practicing physician in the community before he moved into the CEO role. “People still say, ‘years ago, you cared for my mom or dad,’” he recalled. 

Packer is in a two-week period of overlap with his successor, who officially takes the reins on March 21. “The new guy” is Michael McDermott, who comes from a similar background, rising up from the ranks as a physician (in McDermott’s case, a radiologist) to health system CEO in a midsized market, leading Mary Washington Healthcare in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Montage board chair Patrick Burke described it as “very similar to Montage.” 

McDermott introduced himself as a human (he and his wife “have always been California dreamers,” he offered), as an athlete (he’s previously run the Big Sur marathon) and as a doctor-turned-CEO who leaves behind a successful health system that went from operating in the red to the black. He spoke of his affection for technology as a self-described “computer geek” and his pride in implementing a new medical training program to help train medical professionals locally.

“My first order of business will be listening,” McDermott told the hundreds of people in attendance. That will mean listening to many constituent groups—employees, donors, patients, community leaders, state officials. The fourth-ever CEO of Montage inherits the system at a time of change and challenge, as the state is striving to rein in rising healthcare costs and a doctor shortage persists. 

Look for lots of reporting about McDermott and his approach to those challenges (and more) in the coming months in the Weekly. Meanwhile, he gets a warm, fuzzy handoff that would suit the old days of small-town hospitals as well as the big stage once occupied by the likes of Michael Phelps, a sign of healthcare in a time of transition.