James L. Reinertsen, M.D.
James L. Reinertsen heads The Reinertsen Group. The winner of the 2011 John L. Eisenberg Individual Achievement Award for his decades of US and International leadership for clinical quality and safety, Dr. Reinertsen has an unusual combination of skills and experience:
- He practiced rheumatology for twenty years, earning a
reputation as a superb, patient-centered consultant.
- For 15 years, he was a respected CEO of two complex health care delivery systems in very challenging environments.
- He has functioned as an innovative thought leader in
health care leadership development, clinical quality improvement,
patient safety, health system integration, and health care
market design.
- For the past 11 years, Dr. Reinertsen was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Health Care Improvement, where he led the development and delivery of IHI's programs for boards, executives, and medical staff leaders, in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
- He was a subcommittee member for the Institute of Medicine’s pivotal reports, To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm, and continues to prod health care change as an author of papers in major medical journals, and as a provocative, highly-sought speaker at national forums.
From July 1998 to August, 2001, Dr. Reinertsen was Chief
Executive Officer of both CareGroup, a six hospital, 1400
physician system, and of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center,
a teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School. During
that time, he was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical
School.
Before his engagement at CareGroup, he served as the first
Chief Executive Officer of Park Nicollet Health Services
(formerly HealthSystem Minnesota) in Minneapolis, an integrated
care system that includes Methodist Hospital and Park Nicollet
Clinic. He was President and CEO of Park Nicollet Medical
Center from 1986 to 1992, and President of Park Nicollet
Medical Foundation from 1983 to 1985.
From 1992 to 1997, Dr. Reinertsen was Chairman of the Institute
for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), a collaborative
effort to develop and implement best practices in health
care, sponsored by the Buyers Health Care Action Group, Park
Nicollet, Mayo Clinic, and HealthPartners, a Twin Cities
health plan. ICSI is a nationally recognized example of what
physician groups that otherwise compete with each other can
accomplish when they collaborate around common professional
and business goals.
A frequently invited speaker on these issues for physician,
hospital, and integrated delivery system organizations, he
also has authored more than 70 articles in journals such
as Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal,
New England Journal of Medicine, and the Joint Commission
Journal on Quality Improvement. Dr. Reinertsen is Past President
of the American Medical Group Association, and is a former
member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of
Internal Medicine. He is an Honorary Fellow of the British National Health Service’s Institute for Innovation and Improvement.
He joined Park Nicollet Medical Center as a consultant in
rheumatology in 1978, following two years as a Clinical Associate
at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
A member of Alpha Omega Alpha, he received his medical degree
from Harvard Medical School in 1973, and completed an internship
at San Francisco General Hospital in 1974, and a residency
at the University of California Hospital in 1976. Doctor
Reinertsen is a 1969 summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate
of St. Olaf College in Minnesota.