Building the 'best service organization anywhere'. Interview by Lynn D. Kahn

Larry L. Mathis has spent his health-care career with The Methodist Hospital System, Houston, serving since 1983 as president and chief executive officer. The network of managed, owned and affiliated hospitals has 10,000 beds and annual revenues approaching $650 million. At the hub of the system is The Methodist Hospital, a 1,218-bed tertiary-care and research facility. When it adds 300 beds later this year, the hospital will be the world's largest private hospital. In an interview with Lynn D. Kahn, Health Care Strategic Management's managing editor, Mathis describes the planning process that keeps his complex hospital system on track.