Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, serves as Executive in Residence, General Catalyst; Chief Global Innovation Officer, Sheba Medical Center; Distinguished Fellow at World Economic Forum.
Stephen will serve on the keynote panel "Change Management in the Era of Disruption: Strategies for Executives " at Becker's Hospital Review 12th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place in Chicago from April 25-28, 2022.
To learn more about the conference and Stephen's session, click here.
Q: What are your top priorities for 2022?
Stephen K. Klasko: As someone who spent forty years in academic medicine and now is on the other side in the venture capital and healthcare transformation world, I am committed to making sure that we utilize fourth industrial revolution technologies (AI, drones, robotics, machine learning, predictive analytics) to move health equity, social determinants and population health from philosophic and academic exercises to the mainstream of clinical care, payment models and medical education. Our broken, fragmented, expensive and inequitable healthcare system can only be solved through radical collaboration between the traditional healthcare ecosystem and the "Silicon Valley" mindset of rapid transformation.
Q: What advice do you have for emerging leaders today?
SK: If there is anything the pandemic taught us, it is that new leaders need to emphasize their empathy and engender trust in the time of crisis. So I have three pieces of advice:
1) Radical communication: have all your employees feel and believe that they know you and your main job is creating a culture that has them feel proud to go to work every day
2) Think about what is going to be obvious ten years from now and try to do it today. We are way too incremental in our approaches in the face of health inequities, skyrocketing costs etc. Sebastian Thrun has said "the problem in American healthcare is not that we aim too high and fail, it's that we aim too low and exactly hit the mark!"
3) Do not be afraid to hire superstars that have skill sets beyond yours. One of my best lessons at Wharton was "always have five people under you who think they can do a better job than you, and three that are right!"