Leadership Essentials in the Era of Health Reform
Keynote Address
George Halvorson, chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, gave the keynote lecture at the Nov. 5, 2010 Public Health Roundtable. His address was titled: “Health Reform: Where Do We Go From Here?”
Panel Discussion
Local leaders from the public and private sectors who are engaged in implementing health reform legislation, along with University of Minnesota School of Public Health faculty leaders, discussed the massive undertaking and what is necessary to lead in a time of complexity and ambiguity, and offered lessons learned and practical applications of the new law.
Panel Members
- Cal Ludeman, Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Services
- David Tilford, President and CEO, Medica
- Lynn Blewett, professor, School of Public Health
- Daniel Zismer, associate professor, School of Public Health
Robert Veninga, School of Public Health Professor Emeritus and noted national resource on leadership, moderated the discussion.
Video
Leadership Essentials in the Era of Health Reform- a University of Minnesota Public Health Roundtable
About George C. Halvorson
George C. Halvorson is chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, headquartered in Oakland, Calif. Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest nonprofit health plan and hospital system, serving about 8.6 million members and generating $42 billion in annual revenue.
Halvorson serves on the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care, the American Hospital Association’s Advisory Committee on Health Reform, and the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. He serves on the board of the America’s Health Insurance Plans and the board of the Alliance of Community Health Plans. Halvorson chairs the International Federation of Health Plans and co-chairs the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care. In 2009, he chaired the World Economic Forum’s Health Governors meetings in Davos, Switzerland. He has received the Modern Healthcare/Health Information and Management Systems Society CEO IT Achievement Award. The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange also awarded him the 2009 Louis Sullivan Award for leadership and achievements in advancing health care quality.
Halvorson has written several health care reform books, including the recently released Health Care Will Not Reform Itself: A User’s Guide to Refocusing and Reforming American Health Care. He also wrote Health Care Reform Now!, Health Care Co-ops in Uganda, Strong Medicine, and Epidemic of Care as guidebooks for health care reform. Halvorson served as an advisor to the governments of Uganda, Great Britain, Jamaica, and Russia on issues of health policy and financing. His strong commitment to diversity and inter-ethnic healing has led him to his current writing project, a new book about racial prejudice around the world.
Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Halvorson was president and chief executive officer of HealthPartners, headquartered in Minneapolis. With more than 30 years of health care management experience, he has also held several senior management positions with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.