John Kenagy Speaker Biography
Physician, Healthcare Executive, Scholar, Advisor, Patient, and Author of Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times
Dr. John Kenagy possesses a deep understanding of healthcare, drawing from 30 years as a vascular surgeon and physician executive. He is known for being intelligent, compassionate, and resourceful. Moreover, he has experienced healthcare from both the patient and provider perspectives. Without a doubt, he recognizes the system’s significant flaws. In 1992, a personal accident dramatically shifted his viewpoint. While climbing a tree with his son, Dr. Kenagy fell and suffered a broken neck. Consequently, he spent three months in a halo brace and another three months disabled and undergoing therapy. This experience provided him with a profound look at healthcare from the patient’s side, shaping his insights as a leading healthcare speaker.
Author and Advocate for Adaptive Design
In his insightful book, Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times, Dr. Kenagy presents Adaptive Design as a crucial solution. Indeed, this concept has become his life’s work. He dedicates his time to educating managers and frontline caregivers. He teaches them how collaborative efforts can lead to meaningful change. Furthermore, he inspires and reveals how patients can receive precisely what they need. This can occur while continually lowering costs within the system. Ultimately, he believes this approach is the key to fixing healthcare. His impactful message resonates with audiences, establishing him as a sought-after healthcare speaker. As one conference director noted, his presentation was a significant success, with many requesting access to his slides.
Unique and Extensive Professional Background
Dr. John Kenagy brings a unique and extensive background to his role as a healthcare speaker. His experience encompasses roles as a physician, healthcare executive, scholar, advisor, and, importantly, a patient. After graduating with distinction from the University of Nebraska Medical School with his MD, he pursued training in General and Vascular Surgery at the University of Washington. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and holds board certification in both General and Vascular Surgery. Beyond his 20 years as a vascular surgeon, Dr. Kenagy has held significant leadership positions. These include Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff, and Regional Vice President for Business Development at PeaceHealth, a large multistate healthcare delivery system.
Innovative Research and Speaking Engagements
Dr. Kenagy’s research at Harvard focused on developing disruptive innovation healthcare strategies. He collaborated with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. Furthermore, he applied successful methods from companies like Toyota, Intel, and Apple to the healthcare system. His research and teaching also explored innovative companies. These were companies that thrived when others struggled to adapt. As a dynamic healthcare speaker and consultant, Dr. Kenagy leads workshops on Adaptive Design nationwide. His unique expertise empowers organizations to leverage Adaptive Design to achieve greater possibilities. To date, Dr. Kenagy has presented his transformative ideas to over 200 organizations. These include prestigious institutions like Mayo Health System and Harvard University, as well as the U.S. Army Medical Command, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, and Microsoft. His workshops cater to a wide range of healthcare professionals, from executives to frontline staff.
Educational Foundation and Transformative Insights
Driven by a quest to address systemic issues within healthcare, Dr. Kenagy pursued a management degree at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Subsequently, he was appointed a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School, a position he held from 1998 to 2002. This rigorous academic background underpins his insightful perspectives as a healthcare speaker. His management workshops are specifically designed for executives, managers, board members, clinical leaders, staff, and physicians with organizational responsibilities in healthcare and related industries. Dr. Kenagy offers both half-day and full-day workshop options. Importantly, both include copies of his influential book, Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times. The positive feedback he receives, such as the praise from the President and CEO of Trinity Regional Health System for his “inspirational and motivating presentation,” underscores his effectiveness as a speaker and his ability to make the principles of Adaptive Design resonate with healthcare leaders.
John Kenagy Speaking Topics
Value--‐Based Care: Delivering on the Promise
The Promise is more access to better safe care, all at continually lower cost. The good news is most healthcare organizations are already positioned to deliver on the Promise. Three simple, low risk, high reward steps will create a Center of Value and Excellence (CoVE) that will generate more access to better, safer care at continually lower cost in 3-4 months. Once you create a CoVE, you simply replicate and scale what you now know how to do. It’s not rocket science; it’s the science of adaption.
Patient Experience: Partnering to Meet Patient Needs Ideally
Physicians, staff and management partner to meet patient needs ideally when everyone in your organization can work at the “top of their license.” For example, our data show nurses, on average, spend less than 30% of their time in direct patient care. Management, staff and physicians can partner and use Adaptive Design to eliminate the hurdles and barriers that pull everyone away from patients. It's a low risk, high reward opportunity to create a world--class patient experience and continually lower the cost of care.
Sense, Respond, Adapt: Managing the Unpredictable in Real-Time
Healthcare organizations are, by nature, complex, constantly changing and unpredictable. Using conventional data to manage a complex organization is like driving your car by looking at your rear-view mirror. Creating a Sense/Respond/Adapt capability is a simple, safe approach to managing the unpredictable in real time. It’s action innovation – do it, improve it, then replicate and scale it. The results are more care for less cost and new predictive analytics that can be generated by any healthcare organization.
Adaptive Design: Do and Improve Across the Care Continuum
Adaptive Design is an integrated set of methods, skills and tools that make everyone accountable for patient-centered, care and improvement as part of their everyday work. Unlike Lean, Six Sigma, PDSA and other project-based, process reengineering methods, Adaptive Design is a self-sustaining system for designing, doing and improving complex work within and across disciplines. It is a low risk, high reward way to create horizontal integration across the silos, both inside and outside your organization. It is a simple, safe, value-based Operating System for 21st Century healthcare.
Creating Cultural Chemistry: How to Thrive at the Point-of-Care
You don’t implement a great culture; you make it. This presentation taps into the latest research in human decision-making and the success characteristics of innovative, resilient, highly adaptive companies. Leaders from the C-suite to the frontline will learn how to use Purpose, Prototypes, Progress, Momentum and Mastery to create a world-class culture designed to adapt to meet the value-based care needs of 21st Century healthcare.
Centers of Value and Excellence: CoVE’s and the Future of Healthcare
Being a Center of Excellence is good; but CoE is a product of the 20th Century. Centers of Value and Excellence (CoVE’s) will predictably lead 21st Century healthcare. The good news is that most organizations already have the resources needed to adapt rapidly to create multiple Centers of Value and Excellence. Developed, aligned and supported by wise leadership, front lines trained in Adaptive Design can quickly design and prototype many small, low risk, high reward changes as part of their every day work. The results generate more access, to better, safer care at continually lower cost.
John Kenagy Books
Designed to Adapt: Leading Healthcare in Challenging Times
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John Kenagy Articles
John Kenagy Speaker Testimonials
Dr. John Kenagy and Adaptive Design are truly expanding the possible for healthcare…greatly improving the quality of care while reducing its cost by 50% or more. I am not overstating this potential.
- Clayton Christensen | Professor, Harvard Business School
Based on my Mayo Health System experience, I have one word for Dr. Kenagy's Adaptive Design—brilliant.
- Mark Lindsay, MD | Assistant Professor, Mayo Clinic
I have never done anything that energizes people so quickly. And the more they do it, the more they are energized.
- Ed Gamache | Principal, Fourth Aim Consulting, LLC
