Chief Medical Advisor to Vale Health

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Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, DSc honoris causa, is a transformative leader and advocate for a revolution in our systems of health care and higher education. He has been a university president, a dean, a CEO, and an obstetrician, and now pursues his vision for the creative reconstruction of American healthcare by bridging traditional academic centers with entrepreneurs and innovators.

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His passion is using technology to eliminate health disparities and offer everyone the promise of health assurance. Dr. Klasko is also a lifelong DJ who believes that the message in the music can give us the courage to tackle a broken, fragmented, unfriendly, expensive, and inequitable healthcare system.

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He currently serves as an executive in residence at General Catalyst, North American ambassador for Sheba Medical Center in Israel, and as CMO of Abundant Partners. He serves on the board of directors at Teleflex. In 2022, President Biden appointed him to the National Board of Education Sciences.

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His 2023 book is titled Feeling Alright: How the Message in the Music can Save Healthcare published by ACHE.

As president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Health from 2013-2021, he led one of the nation’s fastest growing academic health institutions based on his vision of re-imagining health care and higher education.

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Under his leadership, Jefferson expanded from three hospitals to 18 and from a health sciences university to a professional university with multiple campuses. Its revenue grew from $1.8 to $9 billion. His 2017 merger of Thomas Jefferson University with Philadelphia University created a pre-eminent national doctoral university that includes top-20 programs in fashion and design and occupational therapy, the first design-thinking curriculum in a medical school, and the nation’s leading research on the role of empathy in health care.