I’ve had the opportunity over the years to interview scores of professionals leading great health care associations. Many served as elected officials and often would have just a year leading before stepping down for the next elected representative. The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation’s Mary Logan is a rare exception and I’ve had the pleasure to interview her a number of times over the years. Late last year Logan announced she would retire in 2016 after serving nearly eight years as president and CEO. The process of finding her replacement is ongoing, but judging by the esteem in which she’s held, a special kind of leader will need to step in to fill the vacancy. Read on to learn why.

HCB News: Prior to AAMI where did you come from?
ML: My longest and most recent stint was as COO of the American Dental Association — for seven years. I had been general counsel for 10 years previously, with a space of seven years between those two positions from when I left the association.

HCB News: How did you connect with AAMI?
ML: It’s a great career story — there was a board coup in the spring of 2008 at the ADA — the board fired the CEO, me and most of the management team. It was a huge coup, very painful for the staff, very divisive and very public. I was fired for the first time in my life and it was a painful experience. I had been honored by the ADA as an honorary member. That’s how attached they were to me and how attached I was to them. I announced to the world — friends and family — that I might never work again, that’s how hurt I was. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I took the summer off, studied for and took the test to become a certified association executive, which was challenging, and got pulled into some consulting work at the nudging of some professional friends.

Meanwhile, my former CEO and boss from the ADA was actively networking and dragged me to a lunch with another association executive. During the lunch, the other executive said he knew a recruiter we should meet. My boss was very interested, I wasn’t, but I spoke with the recruiter anyway. He wanted me to look at the job spec for a position in D.C., which turned out to be the AAMI president/CEO position. I printed out the job spec and put it on the kitchen counter, where my husband saw it and said it looked like the job was made for me. I was reluctant because the job was in D.C. and we lived in Chicago, but I met with the recruiter, started researching and became more and more interested, and then really got excited about the position. It was meant to be, and the timing was serendipitous. It was the only job I applied for, and when I first chatted with the recruiter I didn’t even have an updated resume because it had been so long since I had been in the job market. Now, I’m an evangelist for networking. I tell people — always be open for opportunity because you never know where it will take you.

My predecessor at AAMI was the first CEO and was in that role for 40 years. It could have been very difficult to follow such a long-term leader, but the board and staff really welcomed me and the partnership with the board and staff has been incredible through my entire tenure.



HCB News: What have been some of the highlights?
ML: One of the most personally rewarding highlights has been the growth trajectory of the AAMI Foundation since 2010, when we first made a major commitment to turn the Foundation into a place where multidisciplinary stakeholders work together to solve tough patient safety issues around the adoption and use of health care technology.

One of the big programs that the Foundation has been recognized for is clinical alarm management — AAMI was instrumental in creating visibility for the problem of alarm fatigue and we held a summit on it in 2011. We were stunned with the response. We pushed and kept working at it with projects assigned to the AAMI Foundation, and then the Joint Commission made alarm management a national patient safety goal and we were recognized by the Joint Commission when they set that goal. The Foundation’s National Coalition on Alarm Management developed a fantastic compendium last year on how to comply with the Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goal, and this year they are wrapping up some additional big projects on alarm management.


The AAMI Foundation also has a national coalition on opioid safety — addressing the major risk of respiratory depression for patients on opioids. And, the Foundation has produced some great deliverables on infusion safety as well.

If you were to ask my staff for other highlights during the past eight years, they would flag the AAMI/FDA summits that we started in 2010 and have continued every year since then. We pick tough technology-oriented issues that need to be addressed in a multidisciplinary way — and then we co-convene this annual event with the FDA and publish a report based on the outcomes developed by the attendees at the event.

The Launch of AAMI University — our online learning platform — is another high point. We have always had strong face-to-face training programs and learning events, and AAMI University takes us into the future of delivering education and training to health care technology-oriented professionals with a much wider menu of options for when and how the education and training are delivered.


The staff also would point to their own sense of pride in AAMI becoming much more visible in the broader healthcare community. We’ve worked really hard in these last eight years to build relationships, to rebuild relationships, and to get out there in the world as the premier expert on health care technology issues. Standards are our “bread and butter” business, but standards by themselves don’t always draw a lot of public interest and attention.

The staff has worked hard to show the human interest side of our work, and to make a much stronger connection between our work and patient safety in the hearts and minds of the broader health care community beyond our loyal volunteers. It’s always hard to limit a list of highlights, but the last one I would flag is our strategy to expand our certification programs. The big news of the day is that this spring we applied for ANSI certification. Certification programs in general are growing, with programs in abundance for professionals to enhance their learning and portfolio. The proliferation of certificates and certifications makes it very important to employers to know that a particular certification actually means something — that it has real substance.

It’s kind of like someone going to a virtual college — how do you know it’s a robust education? One way is getting the program accredited. And we just applied for accreditation of our BMET certification program with ANSI. It’s a big step in our overall strategy for our certification programs.


HCB News: Do you have any plans for your retirement?
ML: My husband and I will retire at the same time — we’ve both worked full time, hard-driving, since we were 16. We love to travel, love to play, and we haven’t had enough time for it. We also want the flexibility to go back to school, garden and spend more time with family and friends. I love to write. I know I’ll need some outlet for writing and I have no idea what that will be. I’ve made a commitment to myself and my husband that I won’t commit to anything for the first year so we can enjoy living in the moment and life. Whatever I experience next, it will be the first time in my life when I have not felt some type of self-imposed pressure to have a plan. It’ll be a time where I’m just excited to live and have no plans and I’m hoping I can stay with that. If there is some other kind of plan that needs to bubble up, then it will come when the time is right.

HCB News: What kind of qualities do you hope for in your successor?
ML:The leadership profile for the position is in development by the search committee and Korn Ferry, the search firm that is managing the search for my successor. I’m sure the profile will call for a leader who has passion for health care technology and patient safety, a quick study to grasp complex ideas and translate them into opportunities, someone who is forward-thinking and strategic with great business skills, and a person who is a good listener, as well as a skilled presenter. Although not always a trait sought out for CEOs, it will be helpful for AAMI’s new CEO to be down-to-earth and humble, because of the culture of the AAMI community and the diversity of the multidisciplinary volunteers who help make AAMI the successful organization it is today.

HCB News: What are your hopes for AAMI for the future?
ML: What I get the most excited about at AAMI is when diverse multidisciplinary people who don’t normally work together come together and work collaboratively to solve some big problem. There’s magic when it works, it’s wonderful to participate in and AAMI is very good at it. Health care, in general, has become so siloed that AAMI’s multidisciplinary convener expertise is needed now, more than ever. I also hope my successor can help AAMI find the perfect big strategy and growth trajectory with health IT as medical devices continue to become integrated. It will be fantastic to look back in five years and see that clear path forward.

A final point that is important to make — I think that a lot of times, in a lot of organizations, there’s too much emphasis on what the CEO has done. Just talking about the highlights of the last eight years makes me uncomfortable because the spotlight should not be on me. I think it’s important for HCB News readers to understand and appreciate what the amazing staff and volunteers at AAMI have done. I’ve been successful because of them and they’re who we need to celebrate.