We Can Fix Healthcare - The Future is Now

The Authors

Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA

Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA is the President of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health, leading 11 hospitals, 25,000 employees and 10,000 students. He has been dean of two of America's medical colleges and the chief executive of three academic health systems. At each institution, he has built programs to develop the clinicians of the future, and in building a partnership of Thomas Jefferson University with Philadelphia University, he is building the university of the future. He is married to Colleen Wyse, a Vice President for Visit Philadelphia, and has three children: Lynne, David and Jill.

Gregory P. Shea, PhD

Gregory P. Shea, PhD is Adjunct Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Senior Fellow at Wharton's Center for Leadership and Change Management, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He has consulted extensively in industries undergoing massive changes, most recently being healthcare. Dr. Shea graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and holds an M.Sc. in Management Studies from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in Administrative Science from Yale.

Michael Hoad, MA

Michael Hoad, MA, born in Guyana and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, became a journalist after stints at Yale University, Stanford University and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. He used those skills to name, rebrand and lead communications for USF Health and eventually became Vice President of the University of South Florida. His passion is family history and generational narrative. He serves as Executive Editor of the journalzine Healthcare Transformation.

Five-Star Reviews

"Dr. Stephen Klasko, the brilliant and visionary CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, has written an extremely important and insightful book about how the combination of consumerism and technology can truly transform healthcare from a seemingly hopeless liability of ever rising expenses and shortages into a dynamic industry with more and better care at a lower cost. A mighty wave of breathtaking innovations and breakthroughs awaits us in medicines, medical devices and delivery systems. Klasko and Shea show how all of these dazzling possibilities can become realities...and soon!"

Steve ForbesChairman and Editor in Chief
Forbes Media

"Radical change in business takes a special kind of leadership, and healthcare is no exception. Steve Klasko is such a leader, and his book insightfully explores the transformative process that will finally allow healthcare to join the consumer revolution."

Jack WelchFormer CEO of General Electric
and Bestselling Author

"We Can Fix Healthcare – The 12 Disruptors That Will Create Transformation shows Dr. Stephen Klasko at his best. Merging medical, technical, business and visionary perspectives to drive head-on at challenges and solutions to unwind the Gordian knot of healthcare. Working from the patient perspective inwards, Stephen's approach diagnoses and addresses an exciting and inspiring vision that requires attention."

William StemperComcast Business, President

"Cloud, mobility, and big data shifted market power from entrenched incumbent organizations to customers-in-control. Healthcare had missed this message. Dr. Stephen Klasko is a visionary and a courageous healthcare disruptor. As the leader of one of the nation's most forward-thinking medical institutions, he explains in a clear and easy to read prose exactly what must be done to transform our outdated healthcare system. Where the politicians and lobbyists failed, the innovators now need to take the lead."

John SculleyFormer Apple CEO

"Dr. Stephen Klasko and Greg Shea travel through time to give us 12 all too logical, innovative, and disruptive prescriptions for transforming healthcare in the universe in which we live. Dr. Klasko can walk the talk, and demonstrates how a systematic and collaborative model can create a healthier system for all."

Roger Holstein CEO, Healthgrades

"We Can Fix Healthcare – The 12 Disruptors That Will Create Transformation is a powerful prescription for transcending the grinding inertia and spiraling costs of our healthcare system. With personal interviews of everybody from sick patients to hospital executives – and with an imagined rallying across our otherwise deadlocked political spectrum. Steve Klasko and Greg Shea identify a dozen 'disrupters' and offer a compelling fix for one of our country's most vital but also most obstinate institutions."

Michael Useem Professor of Management and Director of the Wharton Leadership Center
University of Pennsylvania

Show More Reviews

"What a reprise! Klasko and Shea have done it again with the right mix of wisdom, straight fun, and well intentioned satire. Now if only the policy makers would listen up."

Elliot Sussman, MDCEO, The Villages Health

"This book about the future of healthcare in the United States is surreal, but certainly no more surreal than the current reality we all experience. The authors take us through a time-travel enabled vision of a new 'impossible' future for American healthcare and the health of America. The trip is light hearted, even joyful, but simultaneously it is intensely serious. We are invited to 'look in the mirror' for 'impossible' solutions for current healthcare conundrums--solutions that simply appear to be common sense when looked at from afar. This book will make you smile as you bounce through its kaleidoscopic scope. But, more importantly, it will make you think. Hopefully, it will also make you, whoever you are, act. Read it for fun, but beware the 'vapors.' You may never see the world of healthcare in the same way again."

Robert J. Laskowski, MD, MBA, FACPSenior Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Delaware
President and CEO (retired), Christiana Care Health System, DE
Chair, Board of Directors, Association of American Medical Colleges

"Whether you're a healthcare professional, policy maker, healthcare entrepreneur or technologist, this book will compel you to take action. Stephen Klasko challenges us, inspires us, and puts us squarely on the path we must take to change, innovate and bring about a healthcare system that works for everyone."

John DoerrKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

"The crisis in healthcare isn't political, it's a crisis of leadership. Steve Klasko is saying step up! Make change an opportunity to lead, not follow. And he shows exactly how. I love his argument that every so called disruption can be transformation if we seize the moment and lead. This book is telling us to lead the future, don't be afraid of it, and make America the best healthcare system anywhere, for everyone."

Judith vonSeldeneckPresident and CEO, Diversified Search, Inc.

"This book is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of healthcare in America. It makes the case that to improve our healthcare system we must disrupt almost every element of our current system. It is a fascinating and electric first person narrative that often makes me laugh but always made me think!"

Edward Rendell Former Governor of Pennsylvania and Chairman, Democratic National Committee

"Stephen Klasko and Gregory Shea are gadflies with bona fides -- disruptors with a plan. With visionary insight and a light touch, Klasko and Shea offer We Can Fix Healthcare – The 12 Disruptors That Will Create Transformation as a crucial dispatch from the future frontlines of medicine and a clarion call to revolutionize the American healthcare system as we know it."