Location: Grand Ballroom, Pennsylvania Convention Center
Date/Time: 11 June 2018, 17:30-19:00

"The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Healthcare Galaxy: The Actions That Changed the Healthcare Landscape in America From 2017-2027"                                              

Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, President and CEO, Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health

Abstract: What if someone came down from another planet and looked at the healthcare system in the place called USA on the planet earth. What they would find is a system that speaks of wellness but is financed by disease treatment, one that talks about moving from volume to value but has yet to figure out how to define or reward value, and one where every other aspect of its economy and lifestyle has been transformed by technology and consumerism except for healthcare. The author of the books, We CAN Fix Healthcare and The Phantom Stethoscope, President Klasko uses science fiction to challenge audiences to imagine an ideal future, and identify what it takes to design that future today. He reviews twelve “disruptors” for the demise of the old healthcare system, and shows how each is an opportunity to take the trends and incremental steps we see today and create the transformations and disruptions tomorrow. His optimism is an antidote to fear surrounding current change. Most importantly, President Klasko challenges us to erase traditional boundaries and silos, to see creativity as a strategy, and to reconsider a hospital system as a “consumer organization.” He is passionate about designing a system without health disparities, a system that makes wellness the goal and a system where augmented intelligence use machine cognition to replace doctors’ memorization skills so that doctors can be chosen based on self-awareness and empathy to create meaningful relationships with patients. The talk will demonstrate actionable strategies through an innovative “history of the future” thought experiment, a strategic planning process which has led to Dr Klasko’s organization rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing academic medical centers in the nation, one that is more optimistic about its future than its almost two-hundred year old past.

About the Speaker: Stephen Klasko is President and CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the nation. An advocate for transformational change in health care, he is author of 2016’s “We Can Fix Healthcare in America: The Future Is Now,” and editor in chief of the journal Healthcare Transformation. He previously served as CEO of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine at University of South Florida. At Jefferson he leads an academic medical center that consistently ranks among the top academic health systems in the country and which has grown over the last two years to include 29,000 employees, twelve hospitals and over 2-million patient visits. In 2015, he led the merger of  Jefferson with Abington Health in one of the nation’s first shared-governance, “hub and hub” academic medical center mergers. He has also attracted Aria Health System and Kennedy Health System, two premier community academic medical centers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to join this unique system. Jefferson further announced plans to merge with Philadelphia University, a top ten design university in suburban Philadelphia. He is a professor of OB-GYN at Sidney Kimmel Medical College and the founder of Spirit of Women, a grass roots womens health empowerment organization now utilized at over 150 hospitals and health systems. After receiving his MD, and completing his obstetrics and gynecology residency, he completed his MBA at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. After the conclusion of his MBA, he received a $1.5 million grant to investigate the selection and education biases that affect physician’s ability to negotiate and handle change, which resulted in his previous book, “The Phantom Stethoscope: A Field Manual for an Optimistic Future in Medicine.” He is married to Colleen Wyse, a fashion publishing executive and founder of Philadelphia Trunk Show, and has three children and one grandchild.