I got the very sad news today that Ian Morrison died peacefully at home yesterday. He had been sick and in hospice for some time but a few months back he told me that he was going for Jimmy Carter’s record. Ian was my first boss in American health care when I worked for him at Institute for the Future and he was as kind and lovely as he was funny and knowledgeable. I was very glad that when I started THCBGang during the pandemic that he was a regular member.
Ian spent decades working with everyone across health care in American and internationally, but as he used to say essentially was paid to insult people. That he did it so humorously and usefully was the reason he kept being invited back. Any Ian Morrison keynote at a big health care conference was both a chance to learn something and laugh hysterically.
He also never ignored the chance to help those trying to make health care fairer and more equitable, serving on the boards of Martin Luther King Jr hospital, the California Healthcare Foundation and many others. He remained a jovial Glaswegian socialist at heart.
Ian liked to say that he went from Scotland where death was imminent, to Canada where death was inevitable, to California where death was optional. Sadly that last crack wasn’t quite true.
My heart goes out to his wife Nora and their children and grandchildren. There’ll be a more formal obituary and a celebration of his life in the days and weeks to come–Matthew Holt
2025-02-06 15:38:00
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