Administrative Director for NYU Radiology
Making It All Work and Making It Look Easy
Administrative Director Michael Harbeson
There is perhaps no one more eligible and qualified to comment on the changes in the department of Radiology at NYU Medical Center over the last quarter century than Michael Harbeson. For the past six years Mr. Harbeson has been the Administrative Director for Imaging Services, a job encompassing all inpatient and outpatient radiology for the entirety of the School of Medicine (SOM), the Tisch Hospital, and NYU Faculty Practice Radiology. He has shepherded the department’s clinical service to its new, unparalled level of excellence—and as stated above, he always makes it look easy.
Mr. Harbeson’s unique talents and expertise are appreciated daily in diverse ways by an equally diverse cross-section of the department, many of whom are unaware of the full breadth of his responsibilities. These wide ranging proficiencies, honed during his 25 years within the department, reflect the skill sets he acquired while progressing to his present position of command. His unique insights into, and understanding of, the workings of our department reveal his sharp observational and processing skills, and in the opinion of some, a sixth sense regarding detection of impending crises, preternatural calm in the face of catastrophe, skillful personnel management, and innovative long-range planning. His current duties include responsibility for the hiring and management of technical, nursing, administrative and support staff at all NYU affiliated institutions, facilities management including equipment purchasing and vendor maintenance contracts, and the global implementation of the current ambitious strategic plan for the radiology department in collaboration with the School of Medicine, Hospital, and Faculty Group Practice (FGP).
August 21, 1981 marks the first formal association of Michael Harbeson with the NYU Radiology department. He was hired as a radiology technologist by the SOM and thereafter became a CT technologist. Not surprisingly he was soon asked to be the Supervising CT Technologist, and from there became a Chief Technologist. The next promotion was to Operations Manager of the Radiology Service for the SOM. In 1999 he was asked to subsume the comparable positions for the Tisch Hospital and Faculty Practice Radiology, in addition to the SOM, thereby incorporating into his job the responsibilities and duties for what had been three separate and unique positions. In 2001 he was asked to assume the same responsibilities for the Nuclear Medicine section, which, although part of our Department of Radiology, had had its own unique manager. By this juncture doing the work of three men had become routine, so Mr. Harbeson graciously complied.
During his quarter century of close internal observation the biggest change Mr. Harbeson has witnessed in the department is the transition from what was a medical imaging department with a ‘community hospital’ approach into an efficient, forward thinking business oriented patient care service. He divides this period of evolution by two distinctive watersheds, each reflecting the addition of a unique individual’s influence on the department.
In Mr. Harbeson’s opinion the first watershed was the emergence of Andrew Litt, M.D. as the de facto ‘Chief Financial Officer’ for the department. His influence proved to be the primary catalyst in the metamorphosis to a department which plans and functions around a viable business model. “We have always kept customer service and patient care front and center, and always will, but now we never forget that we are a business,” notes Mr. Harbeson. “In addition to providing health care we have a responsibility to maintain ourselves as a viable fiscal entity during challenging times. That to me is the biggest philosophical change to occur in the clinical service sector of our department, and Andy Litt is the single biggest factor in this change.”
The second watershed marked the arrival of Robert I. Grossman as department Chair. “Dr. Grossman’s approach was a real change from what I had seen before,” marvels Mr. Harbeson. “We at NYU have always taken pride in our clinical service, but basically I viewed us as little different from an excellent community hospital. I understood that this was a University Medical Center, but what I never appreciated was the science and education part of our mission. The department was like a three-legged stool, missing two of its legs. Dr. Grossman brought the other two legs, and by so doing he introduced balance to the department. He basically brought us from the 20th into the 21st century.”
When asked where he would personally like to guide the department in the next few years, Mr. Harbeson comments that right now the department is in the midst of the conversion from what had been a department with some startlingly antiquated equipment to a fully modern facility, due largely to the factors above, and the distinctive relationship and support we receive through the NYU–Siemens alliance (see Radiata Vol. 1). “On a practical level, a small goal I aspire to is that I want to see the demise of radiology film, at least in my department. On a more lofty level I want to create and maintain an organization where there is no ‘key log’—no critical point of failure. To do this I need to construct layers of functionality, where leadership and responsibility are interwoven and decentralized, so that in the absence of key individuals the apparatus keeps working. Towards this end I intend to continue to try to merge the two separate entities of the SOM and the Tisch Hospital within our department. Despite the fact that we are all under one roof, literally, and our radiologists are all in one department, for the technical and support staff these represent different worlds. I would like the ability to merge staff pools, allowing more flexibility in assignments, and in particular, better utilization of the unique talents that some of our staff offer.”
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