Legacy 2015 Miami: Black Healthcare Issue | Page 6
6BB
AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD
MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2015
EXECUTIVE SUITE
UM’s Shyroll Morris Shares Insights on Trillion Dollar Healthcare Opportunities
By Zach Rinkins
Shyroll Morris,
Chief Satellite Operations Officer
Answer this riddle: What industry sector
receives nearly $3 trillion in annual
expenditures? Employs more than 16 million
people? And represents 20-percent of the
American economy? If you answered the
healthcare industry, you are right. This noble
sector offers professional and personal
satisfaction for one local executive.
“Directing the care of patients makes an
incredible difference in a person’s life. It also
provides a personal reward,” Shyroll Morris,
chief satellite operations officer at
University of Miami Sylvester
Comprehensive Cancer Center, affirmed.
“My job is to make sure that we block
whatever barriers may prevent or delay a
patient’s care. There is nothing more
rewarding than helping people.”
Sylvester is located in Miami’s downtown
medical center complex. It is South Florida’s
only university-based cancer center and
offers multidisciplinary care, comprehensive
research, in-patient/out-patient facilities
and full-scale oncology services. Over the
past seven years, the center expanded from
one satellite site in Deerfield Beach to five in
Kendall, Plantation, Hollywood, Sylvester
West and Coral Springs.
Morris is charged with guaranteeing that
every off-campus site offers the same level
of care delivered at the flagship location.
“I am responsible for making sure that the
sites are operational and ensure that
patients receive the same high level of
academic health services,” the University of
Florida alumna noted.
“We experience double digit growth every
year. So, my job also entails compliance and
expansion.”
According the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the healthcare sector is one of the
nation’s most vocationally diverse, highly
compensated, and credentialed industries.
Government economists project continued
growth as access to healthcare expands. The
sector offers a variety of positions ranging
from entry-level jobs like orderlies; to
healthcare practitioners; all the way to the
executive ranks. Employees can work in
governmental, non-profit, academic and
private sector environments. These factors
combined with Florida’s high healthcare
consumer population present an attractive
and possibly lucrative employment option.
“There is more to healthcare than the
clinical side of the profession,” Morris
states. “There are many facets like billing,
compliance, quality, legal, marketing,
human resources and everything you can
think of.”
Morris’ aunt was treated for pancreatic
cancer at Sylvester after a prior treatment
failed, and has since passed. However,
Morris attributes her aunt’s seven-year
success--despite a one-year prognosis--to
Sylvester’s quality care. For these reasons
and more, she said the cancer center is the
perfect place for her. “Most of our patients
are referred to us after their initial provider
is unable to help them. We have scientists
performing cutting edge research that helps
us provide customized, precision care,
specially designed for the patients. Once we
develop the research, we share it with other
hospitals,” she boasted. “I’d rather work in
the place where we are actually developing
cancer treatments. And, I always want to
work for the leader in my industry.”
Morris, who earned two master’s
degrees, offers these career success tips for
South Florida’s multi-billion healthcare
landscape. “Healthcare is a service industry.
You must understand the business side. I
re