Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA

CEO, USF Health
Dean, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine

Stephen K. Klasko is bridging the art and science of medicine and health care information technology with twenty-first century business and administrative changes through a unique background of academic and administrative medicine, entrepreneurial clinical practice, and business and leadership training.

He is currently CEO of USF Health and Dean of the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida. Over the past year, he has been honored by being appointed as a trustee for the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology and in January, 2010 was named by Healthcare IT News as one of the ten rising stars in healthcare information technology. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania (chosen by Becker as one of the nation’s top ten hospitals) and Resurrection Health System in Chicago (a nine hospital and healthcare system with over $2 billion of revenue). He is a board certified OB-GYN as well as a graduate of the M.B.A, program at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

At USF, he is building research and teaching collaborations across the colleges of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and public health, to the point where the entities have merged into USF Health. In addition, he is defining a unique entrepreneurial academic model embodying partnerships between hospitals, university physicians and private physicians. These partnerships are allowing USF to redefine ambulatory health care across specialties in an error free, service oriented, and paperless environment. The Carol and Frank Morsani Center For Advanced Healthcare is a national model for outpatient care and has attracted attention in both the public and private sectors. The model has received national prominence and has enabled USF Health to be designated by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement as one of the consortium of 20 quality health science centers in the United States.

Turning transformative philosophy into action has been Dr. Klasko’s competitive advantage as the CEO of the largest academic practice in Florida and dean of the college of medicine of the United State’s ninth largest University. Most recently, he has created a public-private partnership to create PaperFree Tampa, an innovative job creation and healthcare transformation model that creates “electronic healthcare ambassadors” to transform healthcare in the ten county area surrounding USF “one doctor at a time.” In many ways, he is the ideal leader for such an initiative, having completed a grant after his graduation from Wharton on selecting and educating physicians to be leaders as opposed to followers in healthcare reform.

That research and experience was memorialized in a book that he authored entitled “The Phantom Stethoscope: A Field Manual For an Optimistic Future in Medicine,” and has served as the basis for the first medical school curriculum in the country based on health care leadership and information technology. As a national leader in healthcare management, he has transformed three major academic practices from papered to paperless environments in his leadership roles in Pennsylvania and Florida. He has been a keynote speaker internationally on the transformation of clinical practice through healthcare information technology, most recently giving a keynote presentation for the national meeting of the Healthcare Information Management Society entitled “Doctors Without Pens: Obstacles and Opportunities” as well as being a speaker at the recent NASDAQ conference on healthcare reform where he shared his vision on the implementation of the President’s healthcare information revolution.

Prior to joining USF, he was dean of the College of Medicine at Drexel University and CEO of Drexel University Physicians. During that time, he was responsible for the activities of over 450 physicians and over 700 residents per year. That practice group was able to make an eighty million dollar turnaround based on quality initiatives resulting in better managed care rates and decreased malpractice insurance rates as well as unique partnerships which increased revenue by over 50% in three years.

Dr. Klasko was founder and principal of the North Group, Inc., a consulting team that has engineered collaborations between physicians, administrators and industry. This group is responsible for the Optimistic Future program, an award winning program between graduate medical education programs and some of the leading healthcare corporations in the United States.

Dr. Klasko received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology from Lehigh University and earned his medical degree from Hahnemann University in Philadelphia. He completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Health East Teaching Hospitals and became a diplomate of the American Board of OB-GYN in 1984. During a successful private practice and then academic career, Dr. Klasko successfully completed the executive MBA program at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors.

Since that time he has served on the faculties of the Governance Institute and the American College of Physician Executives as well as several Wharton seminars for medical leaders. He has been asked to speak throughout the country regarding his research on physician motivation and negotiation, as well as building trust and transforming culture among physicians and administrators. Dr. Klasko has been selected as a leader of the United Way campaign for physicians and President of the Maimonides Society, an organization of physician volunteers. He has also served as board chair of Casa Guadalupe, a nationally recognized Latino healthcare organization, and was awarded an Alliance for Healthcare Strategy Award for his creation of “Spirit of Women,” a grass-roots women’s health marketing and health improvement program, now adopted by over one hundred hospitals.

Dr. Klasko is married to Colleen Wyse, a magazine publishing executive and has three children: Lynne, David and Jill.