After the end of his political career, Harlem returned to the Statens Attføringsinstitutt. He also doubled as assistant physician at Rikshospitalet from 1965 to 1966. In 1970 he was promoted to director of Statens Attføringsinstitutt, a position he held until 1977. He was a candidate to succeed Karl Evang as leader of the Norwegian Directorate for Health in 1972, but Torbjørn Mork was chosen. He took the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1976 with the thesis "Studies on the Relation between Impairment, Disability and Dependency", and was a professor at the Norwegian Institute of Technology from 1977 to 1980. He rounded off his career as director of NTNF from 1980 to 1986, and then with two years as a general physician in Oslo. He died in March 1988.