Dr. John Kenagy says his 30-year experience as a physician, health system executive and researcher taught him health care is frustratingly difficult to manage because it is not a “traditional business.” For example, a single community hospital, typically, has more products and services, more change and more unpredictability than many multi-billion dollar global corporations. In this environment, traditional business methods are ineffective: too slow, cumbersome and expensive.

His frustration with current methods was fueled by an injury – he suffered a broken neck in a fall from a tree. He made a complete recovery but discovered that he too often had to depend on the extra efforts of people working in a broken system. Searching for organizational answers beyond “trying harder,” he earned an advanced management degree from Harvard and was appointed a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School from 1998-2002.

At Harvard Business School , his research and teaching focused on the adaptive capabilities of innovative companies like Intel, Toyota and SW Airlines who excelled when others failed. He founded Kenagy & Associates, LLC to transfer those capabilities to health care. The result is ADAPTIVE DESIGN^sm - sustainable improvement that starts at the front line by creating a clinical and business focus on Ideal Patient Care then building problem solving and improvement into the work.

Dr. Kenagy’s contributions have been widely recognized:

• Speaking and consulting engagements throughout the US and in Canada .
• Academic appointments including: Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington, Adjunct Professor of Pharmacy and Therapeutics at the University of Pittsburgh and Visiting Scholar, Harvard Business School
• Forbes Magazine featured him as “the man who would save health care.”
• Testimony before US Senate Commerce Committee.
• Published in journals as diverse as Journal of the American Medical Association and Harvard Business Review. His article “Service Quality in Health Care” was named the Best Health Care Management Article of the Year.
• Microsoft has supported his research and posted his white paper “Delivering on the Promise – An Adaptive Approach to Health Care Information Technology”

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