Primary Care Progress Elects J.D. Kleinke to Board of Directors

Cambridge, MA, May 28, 2015 (Newswire.com) -  Primary Care Progress announced today the election of noted medical economist, author, and entrepreneur J.D. Kleinke to its Board of Directors. Mr. Kleinke has been instrumental in the creation of four health care information organizations, advised both sides of the political aisle on pragmatic approaches to health policy and legislation, and written extensively about the impacts of both health policy and market forces on health system dynamics, medical innovation, and organizational adaptation.

Over a career spanning nearly three decades, Mr. Kleinke has been working at the vanguard of every major movement of health system change, including the emergence of the health care informatics industry, the market chaos unleashed by managed care, the push to computerize medical care, and years of policy and political struggles that led to the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

“J.D. has long been a visionary and entrepreneur in the health care space,” said Andrew Morris-Singer MD, Founder and President of Primary Care Progress. “We look forward to engaging his passion, perspectives and wisdom to help take our work to the next level.”

Since the early 1990s, Mr. Kleinke has advised the leadership of major health care companies, mentored the founders of new health ventures, and worked with physician leaders across the country to prepare their organizations for health system change, computerization, and new economic and cultural pressures.

“After many years of grappling in both theory and practice with ways to fix what fails our health care system, I have come to realize that without profound organizational and cultural change, our technocratic fantasies about fixing the system are just that,” Kleinke said.  “Primary Care Progress was founded on the vision of finding ways to formulate and effect generational change in medical practice. My research, writing, experience and beliefs align seamlessly with PCP’s vision that we can only truly reform health care when we reform the way medical care is delivered, as well as the ways in which medical professionals interact with each other, with patients and communities, and with the complicated, messy realities that define the post-modern U.S. health care system.”

Kleinke has served as an executive or board member for numerous health care organizations. He established Health Grades, Inc., for which he served as Executive Vice Chairman of the Board during the 2000s. In the 1990s, he was a principal architect in the creation and rapid growth of HCIA/Solucient (now Truven Health) from a niche health care data analysis firm to a major provider of information products to health care systems, managed care organizations, and pharmaceutical companies across the U.S. and Europe. Before joining HCIA, J.D. was Director of Corporate Programs at Sheppard Pratt Health System, the largest private psychiatric hospital in the U.S. While at Sheppard Pratt, he developed and managed – at the age of 28 – the nation’s first provider-based, managed mental health care system.

Kleinke has served as a Resident Scholar of the American Enterprise Institute; member of the Editorial Board of Health Affairs; and frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post.  He is the author of three books on the U.S. health care system, Bleeding Edge: The Business of Health Care in the New Century (1998); Oxymorons: The Myth of a U.S. Health Care System (2001); and Catching Babies (2011).  His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron’s, Health Affairs, JAMA, the British Medical Journal, Modern Healthcare, Managed Healthcare and Forbes.

Primary Care Progress (PCP) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization working to revitalize the primary care system and build a new interprofessional generation of leaders in primary care. PCP is harnessing a student-led grassroots mobilization strategy, teaching students and other trainees skills in leadership, innovation, and advocacy so they can launch local campaigns to promote primary care, advance innovations in care delivery, and accelerate educational reform. PCP is made up of a network of nearly 50 chapters and thousands of members across the country representing all primary care professions, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, social work, etc.

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Jenette Restivo

Director of Media and Communications