SETH GLICKMAN MD, MBA

I am passionate about reforming our health care system to deliver timely, equitable, and affordable care and bring diverse experience to this mission, including as a clinician, researcher, senior physician executive at both provider and payer organizations, and serial entrepreneur. 

My interest in medicine was catalyzed by my father, an accomplished veterinarian and public health researcher.  I was inspired by his integrity, love for science, and purity of his commitment to improving the health of individuals and communities.  My focus on creating an equitable and just health care system began to take shape during my clinical training in emergency medicine on the South Side of Chicago and fellowships at both the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and National Academy of Medicine. I also found myself heavily influenced by pioneers like Sidney Wolfe, co-founder of Public Citizen, who used research-based advocacy to take on powerful special interests and protect the public from harmful drugs and medical devices.

I went on to hold senior executive leadership roles at several prominent health care systems and payers, including the University of North Carolina, Intermountain Healthcare, and Blue Shield of California, where I led large scale transformation efforts to create innovative care delivery and payment models to improve outcomes and lower costs. I also started, scaled, and sold a digital health company to improve the patient experience and co-founded three other companies.

As much as I loved this work and felt a sense of accomplishment, as I ascended the ranks of U.S. health care, I became increasingly troubled by the shocking breakdown in the moral fiber of our system.  Patients and clinicians have largely become cogs in a wheel driven by large corporations, special interest groups, institutional investors, and powerful executives - driven by profits and power, not patients.  The net result is an expensive and wasteful system, inequity, poor access, and a lack of empathy and mutual understanding for one another and most importantly, for the patients we serve.  And for all the investments and talk about fixing it, we don’t have much to show for it.

I am dedicated to working with leaders and organizations who have the moral courage to drive meaningful change in health care.  As Sid said best, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, and in addition to being a trusted advisor, consultant, and executive coach, I collaborate with leading foundations and non-profit organizations and leverage research based-advocacy to drive accountability and common-sense solutions that deliver real results for patients and clinicians.