“Philadelphia native Dr. Stephen Klasko is a licensed obstetrician and gynecologist, a relentless Twitter user and avid blogger, a former DJ, and all-around funny guy. He became president of Thomas Jefferson University and CEO of Jefferson Healthcare System in 2014. Within three short years, Klasko cultivated a $110 million gift from the Sidney Kimmel Foundation. He added several design and medicine departments to the university, a design track to medical education, and grew Jefferson’s physical plant to 11 associated hospitals across the Delaware Valley, employing 25,000 people.

Klasko is author of two books with a third on the way. He was recently editor-in-chief of the medical journal Healthcare Transformation. The doctor has been the chief executive officer of three academic health systems and the dean of two of America’s medical colleges, including the Jefferson family of institutions. At each location, he has built programs to develop the clinicians of the future, and, with the recent sweep of Philadelphia University into the Jefferson University fold, he is potentially building the medical college of the future. The merger of Philadelphia University and Jefferson University has combined annual revenues exceeding $4.8 billion–more than 28,000 employees, 7,800 students, 6,000 physicians and practitioners, and 4,000 staff on faculty.

Thomas Jefferson Healthcare and Sidney Kimmel Medical School are headquartered in some interesting buildings around the city–the Old Federal Reserve Building at 10th and Chestnut Streets, for instance–but the built environment is only one piece of Klasko’s vision for the future of healthcare. A sci-fi fan since childhood, Klasko enjoys imagining what the next iteration of health care might look like if he can just disrupt the current status quo. He has done a deep dive into design to solve medical problems like obesity, malnourishment, and diabetes. Can we solve these outsized ills with design thinking, design processes, and design practice? Stephen Klasko thinks we can. I recently spoke with the good doctor via email to ferret out his thoughts on smart design and the shape of 21st century healthcare.”

Read more at hiddencityphila.org.