Dr. Robert Kuramoto has experienced the evolution of health care through his father’s life as a rural Midwestern physician and now through his own career as a physician and health care executive. He was the Founder/Chairman of the Physician/Hospital Institute (a national health care “think tank”) and a health care advisor for a Big Five global consulting firm.

At Quick Leonard Kieffer, Dr. Kuramoto is involved in all levels of C-suite executive searches and focuses on identifying exceptional leadership for academic medical centers (CEOs, presidents, deans, chairs, vice presidents of health sciences, etc.) and hospital/health systems (CMO, COO, CMIO, CQO, etc.) He’s additionally worked with health systems to place chief academic officers, new residency program leadership and deans for new medical school curriculum, eg, longitudinal integrated clerkships.

As a frequent national speaker, strategist, recruiter, consultant, and facilitator for health care organizations, Dr. Kuramoto has discussed the physician-trustee-hospital relationship, health care leadership and governance, and future trends of physicians, hospitals, and academic medical centers. He has served as an advisory board member to the New England Journal of Medicine on physician recruiting and is a fellow of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago. He has been a trusted advisor to health care executives and evolving health care firms.

Dr. Kuramoto has practiced 38 years in the specialty of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He has been the Chief Medical Officer of Christie Clinic, a 100 physician multi-specialty group practice.

With hospital and health system governance, he has been chief of staff of Mercy Hospital (now OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center) as well as a board member of this hospital and its system, Servant Cor (now AMITA Health System). Later he served 10 years on the national board of Sister of Charity of Leavenworth Health System (now SCL Health), a twelve-hospital health system headquartered in Denver, CO. More recently, he served on the board of Bon Secours Health System (20 hospitals with headquarters in Baltimore, MD) where he also chaired the system quality committee. Currently, he serves as a committee member of the newly merged system, Bon Secours Mercy Health, (51 hospitals and 10th largest US health system) from the recent merger of Bon Secours and Mercy Health (based in Cincinnati) systems.

Within prominent healthcare associations, he was appointed to the boards of the Illinois Hospital Association, the American Hospital Association (AHA) Regional Policy Board 5, AHA Strategic Policy Planning Committee, and the AHA Committee on Hospital & Medical Staff Governance. In 2007, he was elected and served a six-year term on the national Catholic Health (Hospital) Association (CHA) Board of Trustees.

In leadership roles for diversity, inclusion and health disparities, Dr. Kuramoto was a board member of the AHA’s Institute for Diversity in Health Management and Equity of Care and has been the chairperson of the CHA Diversity & Health Disparities Committee. Prior, he was on the Equity of Care National CEO Call for Action committee with the CEOs of AHA, CHA, American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and America’s Essential Hospitals.

He was the recipient of the 2002 “Excellence in Service Award for Health Care” awarded by the Illinois Hospital Association.

As a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Kuramoto received his BA and MD degrees from the University of Iowa, completed his residency training at Indiana University and is board certified.

He is an Adjunct Faculty at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions and School for the Science of Health Care Delivery. He has served on the national panels discussing the future of payment reform and value-based healthcare.

With these unique experiences in the both the physician and hospital worlds, Dr. Kuramoto has attained valuable and unique insights into the future of healthcare as the industry undergoes disruption, demonetization and disintermediation. He continues to discuss these emerging trends as well as evolving strategies for executives, physicians, providers, hospitals, academic medical centers and healthcare associations with a focus on clinical integration, innovation, continuum of care, models of care delivery, population health as well as healthcare governance and leadership development.