Client Statement:

James Raymond, M.D., Senior Vice President for Quality, Medical Education and Research, Palmetto Health and Associate Dean
University of South Carolina School of Medicine:

I'm not usually given to hyperbole, but in Dr. Reinertsen's case it's completely justified. In all my years of working with consultants, Jim is quite simply the "best of the best." Our engagement with him began a year-and-a-half ago when our organization decided to transform its culture into one inspired by quality and motivated by patient safety. Over this period Jim has coached (and challenged!) our board, senior management, our medical staff leaders, and rank-and-file employees in this quest. To accomplish this monumental undertaking, he has had to break down barriers of conventional thinking and practice and substitute in their stead innovative, yet practical and proven alternatives. Change can obviously be disconcerting, but he makes it stimulating, almost fun! The enthusiasm and momentum he has created is palpable and unique. Most importantly, we are making remarkable progress as a result of his involvement... a real feat considering the complexity and diversity of our system (three hospitals, 9300 employees, 1200 medical staff, and a closely-affiliated medical school). As an instrument of change, knowledge and practical wisdom, Jim is without a peer as far as all of us are concerned at Palmetto Health!

Marly Christenson, MSN, RN, FNP, CPHQ, Senior Director, Clinical and Performance Improvement, VHA Mountain States:
Working with Jim Reinertsen this past year has made a significant difference in the impetus for change among the senior leaders of our hospitals across Mountain States. Commissioning Jim as principal faculty for our Executive Improvement Academy series has resulted in one of the most successful initiatives we’ve implemented. Jim's ability to connect with diverse audiences and focus in on the core principles for leading organizational improvement and transformational change has been integral to the advancement of quality and safety in this region. His insight and expertise has truly been inspirational.

John Hubbe Pharm. D., J.D., Vice President Medical & Legal Services, Delnor-Community Hospital:
Jim’s work with both our Board and our Board Quality Committee has been deeply transformational. He brings a powerful, practical approach to quality improvement and reliability. He is a deep thinker, with a keen sense of timing to articulate fundamental questions with eloquence. As a former healthcare CEO and physician himself, he speaks with candor as a knowledgeable expert and can directly cut through typical arguments with honesty, making the status quo highly undesirable. His analysis is dead-on. The result is a Board with incredible engagement in quality improvement and an authentic desire and willingness to take steps that may have seemed impossible before. With new found tools and understanding, our Board was prepared to take a more active and assertive role in the care of all patients that come in contact with our facility. Jim has the ability to bring together medical staff physicians, administrators and lay board members, to break through their reluctance to take a stand and make a difference, and to take ownership in a deep and meaningful way for the outcomes of all patients in a health system. He brings key understanding of why physicians are the way they are today, with pressures, accountability, but a lack of control themselves, and helps them to bridge this gap.

Ian Leverton, Vice President for Clinical Integration, Sutter Health:
Jim Reinertsen embodies the principles and practice of evidence based medicine and management. He not only has a deep and profound knowledge of the theory but an equally great experience in its practice. I know of no one else who could bring the elements of Sutter Health's program "Managing for Clinical Excellence" together in such a meaningful way as Dr. Reinertsen does.

Carl E. Couch, MD, MMM, Chairman HealthTexas Provider Network:
"Our organization is making Quality Improvement a key priority. We recognize that cannot happen without strategic physician leadership. In a recent weekend retreat for our Board, Dr. Jim Reinertsen was most helpful as a speaker and facilitator. He presented challenging material helping focus our leadership around the challenges of complex problems surrounding quality improvement. Complex adaptive problems require a different type of process than the technical solutions used by most physicians in their daily practice. Using a model he called "adaptive leadership" Dr. Reinertsen, challenged our group to face clinical quality problems frankly, raise the tough questions, give the work to those capable of solving it, protect innovation, and pace the changes at a rate that the group can tolerate. Our group ranked Dr. Reinertsen as the most effective and influential speaker of the last several years. We are hopeful that the material he presented will help advance us faster in the quest to cross "the Quality Chasm". I highly recommend him as a mature, experienced, clinical leader. He is a superb communicator, and was most enjoyable to work with.

Judy C. Morton, Ph.D. Vice President of Quality Integration and Improvement, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle:
Dr. Reinertsen’s work with us is having a deep and lasting impact on our understanding of what is possible --and guiding the work we are doing to truly improve the reliability of the care we provide to each patient we serve. We invited Jim to facilitate a retreat with over eighty board, physician, and administrative leaders. He has a unique and refreshing way of helping individuals and organizations look in the mirror, take the status quo off the table, and move to action with a sense of urgency. He was able to actively engage individuals from all three groups and to help each to understand their role in actively advancing the quality agenda. Jim’s work at that retreat and a subsequent engagement with physicians and staff have generated more enthusiasm, action and results than I have observed in working with any other consultant.

Mark Kelley, M.D., CEO, Henry Ford Medical Group:
Jim Reinertsen gave a much needed boost to our medical leadership. His perceptive and refreshing approach to management provided new insights into solving difficult issues. Jim's considerable experience as a physician manager give him great credibility and his skills as a speaker and educator are superb. All of us want him back for an encore, both as a leadership coach and a strategic advisor.

Lynn M. Myers, M.D, Board Chair, Metrocrest Hospital Authority:
I found your presentation today to be tremendous. As a new board leader and as a physician, the leadership principles you outlined have crystallized in me a plan to make a difference in several aspects of my professional life ... and to make the Metrocrest Hospital Authority an even greater institution.