Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D., M.P.H.

Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D., M.P.H. is a popular speaker and sought after consultant. He has been repeatedly selected as one of the ‘100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare’ by Modern Healthcare magazine, and he has been featured in Time, BusinessWeek, Fortune and numerous other magazines, newspapers and national television shows.

From December 2005 until October 2007, he served as President, CEO and Chairman of Medsphere Systems Corporation. Based in Aliso Viejo, California, Medsphere is the leading commercial provider of open source information technology for the healthcare industry. He continues as Chairman of the Board, a position he has held since Medsphere was founded in 2002.  

Prior to joining Medsphere, Dr. Kizer served for 6 years as the founding president and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF), a Washington, DC-based organization whose mission is to improve American healthcare through endorsement of national voluntary consensus standards for measuring and reporting healthcare quality. Established in 1999, pursuant to a recommendation of a Presidential commission, Dr. Kizer took the Commission’s uncertain idea and developed a unique public-private partnership of over 300 organizations representing all parts of the healthcare industry. 

Dr. Kizer’s professional experience includes positions in both the public and private sectors.  From 1994 through 1999, he served as the Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).  In this role, he was the highest ranking physician in the federal government and CEO of the veterans healthcare system, the largest healthcare system in the nation with a budget then of over $22 billion, approximately 200,000 staff, and over 1,100 sites of care delivery.  Dr. Kizer is widely credited as being the chief architect and driving force behind the greatest transformation of VA healthcare since the system was created in 1946.

From 1985 to 1991, Dr. Kizer was Director of the California Department of Health Services and California’s top health official.  Prior to that, he was Chief of Public Health for California and, before that, Director of Emergency Medical Services for the state.

Dr. Kizer served on the board of directors of Health Systems International, Inc., from 1994 to 1997, and on the board of Trinity Health from 2003 through 2005. He has served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and on the boards of numerous professional associations and non-profit organizations, including as Chairman of the Board of The California Wellness Foundation, a healthcare conversion foundation having assets of over $1 billion.  He has held senior academic positions at UC Davis and the University of Southern California.  He was in both private and academic practice of emergency medicine for over fifteen years, and was a private consultant in medical toxicology and environmental medicine for much of that time. He has been an advisor to numerous foreign countries and other entities.

Dr. Kizer is an honors graduate of Stanford University and UCLA.  He is board certified in six medical specialties and/or subspecialties, and has authored over 400 original articles, book chapters and other reports.  He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Medical Society, the Delta Omega National Honorary Public Health Society, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Kizer is a Certified Health Care Executive and a Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Physician Executives, as well as a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the American College of Medical Toxicology, the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, the American Academy of Medical Administrators, the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health and the Royal Society of Medicine.  He is also a Fellow National of the international Explorer’s Club, a founding member of the international Wilderness Medical Society, a former U.S. Navy diver, and a nationally recognized expert on diving and aquatic sports medicine, as well as other outdoor sports and wilderness medicine.