Robert Phillips

Dr. Robert Phillips is Executive Advisor and Lecturer in Healthcare Management at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Professor of Cardiology at Houston Methodist Academic Institute. He previously held professorships at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York University School of Medicine, and UMass Chan Medical School. His academic career includes more than 190 publications and scholarly works spanning molecular biology, cardiovascular clinical research, and health services research, including two decades of NIH-funded investigation.

Before joining Rice, Dr. Phillips served as Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Executive at Houston Methodist, where he helped establish the health system's national prominence in healthcare quality and patient safety. As President and CEO of its physician organization, he expanded the network from 50 to more than 200 care sites, tripled revenue to over $750 million, and increased patient satisfaction to the 98th percentile. Earlier, at UMass, he led the transformation of cardiovascular services, establishing national leadership in cardiovascular surgery and medicine.

Dr. Phillips has received numerous professional honors, including the 2023 Press Ganey Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to patient experience and the 2020 Most Admired CEO Award from the Houston Business Journal. He was elected to the Association of University Cardiologists in 2012.

At Rice Business, Dr. Phillips developed and teaches Leading Healthcare Through Disruptive Transformation, a case-based course examining the structural forces reshaping the U.S. healthcare ecosystem and their implications for healthcare organizations. The course explores why traditional healthcare models are vulnerable to disruption, evaluates emerging approaches to care delivery and financing, and examines how healthcare organizations can be designed, led, and managed to achieve clinical excellence, operational effectiveness, and financial sustainability.

Clinical Research

Wright JT Jr., Bakris GL, Greene T, et al. Effect of blood pressure lowering and antihypertensive drug class on progression of hypertensive kidney disease: Results from the AASK trial. JAMA. 2002;288(19):2421–2431.

Phillips RA, Xu J, Peterson LE, Arnold RA, Diamond JA, Schussheim AE. Impact of cardiovascular risk on the relative benefit and harm of intensive treatment of hypertension. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2018;71:1601–1610.

Healthcare Leadership and Organizational Transformation

Phillips RA, Cyr J, Keaney JF Jr., et al. Creating and maintaining a successful service line in an academic medical center at the dawn of value-based care: Lessons learned from the Heart and Vascular Service Line at UMass Memorial Health Care. Academic Medicine. 2015;90(10):1340–1346.

Miller SM, Phillips RA, Schwartz RL, Sostman HD, Hackett C, Boom ML. How to develop a Covid-19 employee vaccination policy. Harvard Business Review. July 1, 2021.

Phillips RA, Schwartz RL, Sostman HD, Hackett C, Boom ML. Development and expression of a high-reliability organization. NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery. 2021;2(12).

The Changing Healthcare Ecosystem

Phillips RA, Oghenesume O, Shah N. Marketization, commercialization, corporatization, and financialization of health care. JAMA. 2026;335(3):279.