Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH
Chief Healthcare Transformation Officer
Senior Executive Vice President
Atlas Research, Partner Venturer
Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer is a partner venturer at Titan Alpha and also serves as the Chief Healthcare Transformation Officer and Senior Executive Vice President of Atlas Research. He drives Atlas to provide clients with pioneering health care solutions and innovations. An internationally respected health care leader, Dr. Kizer is widely known for his expertise and accomplishments in health system change leadership, patient safety and quality improvement, population health management, and Veterans health issues.
Leadership
Dr. Kizer’s broad experience includes engineering the internationally acclaimed transformation of the Veterans Healthcare System – the nation’s largest healthcare system – in the late 1990s when serving as the VA’s Undersecretary for Health. This transformation developed and implemented numerous systemic changes that produced dramatically improved quality of care, service satisfaction and operational efficiency. It has been widely studied throughout the world as a model for health care transformation.
He was the founding President and CEO of the National Quality Forum, considered by many as the nation’s premier health care quality improvement organization. He was the founding Chairman, and former President and CEO, of Medsphere Systems Corporation, a leading provider of subscription-based health information technology. Early in his career, he orchestrated California’s response to the then new HIV/AIDS epidemic, established the internationally renowned California Tobacco Control Program, pioneered Medicaid managed care, and was the architect of California’s statewide emergency medical services system. Most recently, he was the founding Director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement in the University of California Davis Health System. He also served as the inaugural Chief Medical Officer for the California Department of Managed Health Care.
Dr. Kizer has the rare distinction of being an elected member of both the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the National Academy of Public Administration. He has been a member of numerous expert panels on Veteran and military health issues, as well as population health issues. He recently chaired NAM studies of the DoD’s Military Family Readiness System, management of the capital assets at the National Institutes of Health, and the health benefits of permanent supportive housing for persons experiencing homelessness. He currently chairs a NAM study assessing the readiness of the military medical workforce for future combat operations. Kizer is a Veteran of the U.S. Navy.
Dr. Kizer has authored more than 500 original articles, book chapters and other reports in the professional literature, and is the recipient of numerous national awards and recognitions.
Education
Dr. Kizer is board certified in six medical specialties and/or subspecialties and a fellow or distinguished fellow of 12 professional societies. He is an honors graduate of Stanford University (Bachelor of Science) and the UCLA Schools of Medicine (Doctor of Medicine) and Public Health (Master of Public Health in Epidemiology).
