J.D. Kleinke

J.D. Kleinke: Profile

Mr. Kleinke has been instrumental in the creation of four health care information organizations; served as a health care business columnist for the Wall Street Journal; advised both sides of the political aisle on pragmatic approaches to health policy and legislation; and long been a leading advocate for a smarter, data-driven, post-partisan health care system. He has served on the Boards of several public and privately held health care information companies; and he has provided business, product and technology strategy to numerous hospitals, health systems, physician groups, and major companies, including Aetna, Amgen, Cigna, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Google, Medtronic, Microsoft, Novartis, Pfizer, United Healthcare and Wellpoint.

Mr. Kleinke helped establish Health Grades Inc., a publicly traded health care information company based in Denver, which he served as Vice Chairman of the Board until 2008. During the 1990s, Mr. Kleinke was a founding executive of Solucient, the nation’s first pure-play health care information company. Before Solucient, Mr. Kleinke was Director of Corporate Programs at Sheppard Pratt Health System, the largest private psychiatric hospital in the U.S. While at Sheppard Pratt - and only 28 years old at the time - Mr. Kleinke developed and managed the nation’s first provider-based, managed mental health care system.

Mr. Kleinke’s written work has appeared in Health Affairs, JAMA, Barron's, The Wall Street Journal, the British Medical Journal, Modern Healthcare, and numerous other publications. His books include Bleeding Edge: The Business of Health Care in the New Century; Oxymorons: The Myth of a U.S. Health Care System; and Catching Babies.

For audiences across the health care, medical, corporate, policy and patient communities, Mr. Kleinke provides a no-nonsense, practical, and often humorous look at the collision of government reform, increasing patient economic empowerment, and emerging information and medical technologies – and their combined effects on the future challenges and opportunities for today’s health care organization.