Leadership Academy: Building Culture & Community: Lessons from the Front Lines

As President and CEO of Scripps Health for the past 25 years, Chris Van Gorder has now successfully led the organization through a quarter of its 100-year history. 

Board certified in health care management and an American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) Fellow, Van Gorder leads all functions of the San Diego based integrated health system, including its five acute-care hospital campuses, and more than 30 outpatient and specialty centers, including the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute and the Scripps Cancer Center. 


Van Gorder’s path to health care leadership was unconventional. A former police officer 
injured in the line of duty, his journey began as a hospital patient. Following a complex and 
lengthy recovery, he secured a job at the hospital where he had received his care, continued 
his health care management education and rose to new levels of responsibility. 

More than 18,000 employees and 3,500 affiliated physicians provide care at Scripps, which 
has made Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 18 years and was 
recently recognized again by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top five medium sized 
health systems in the nation. 

Among his accomplishments, Van Gorder led a financial and cultural turnaround, significantly 
expanded the Scripps’ integrated health system, established a dyad leadership model where 
administrators and physicians co-lead health care operations, and created an innovative 
Model Care program, empowering staff and physicians to continuously redesign patient care. 

Van Gorder is also known for his community contributions. He recently retired as Reserve 
Assistant Sheriff for San Diego County, and last year spearheaded the formation of San 
Diego’s Hospital Workplace Violence Taskforce, bringing together local law enforcement, the 
District Attorney’s office and other San Diego health system leaders to reduce incidents of 
violence against health care workers. In past years he also led medical relief missions 
following Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. 

Van Gorder received his master’s degree in public/health services administration at the 
University of Southern California, completed the Wharton System CEO Program at the 
University of Pennsylvania and earned his bachelor’s degree from California State University, 
Los Angeles. His first book – The Front-Line Leader: Building a High Performance Organization 
from the Ground Up – was published in November 2014.