Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Terry Platchek, MD is a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and serves as the Fellowship Director of the Clinical Excellence Research Center. He is also Associate Chief Quality Officer and Vice President for Performance Improvement at Stanford Children’s Health. Dr. Platchek’s career focuses on reducing the cost of outstanding healthcare with an emphasis on using Lean management to improve quality, safety, service, appropriateness and cost in healthcare delivery. Dr. Platchek is co-author of the book Advanced Lean in Healthcare and is co-author to over a dozen peer reviewed publications describing improvements in healthcare delivery and advocating for higher value models of care. He is specifically interested in the education and engagement of physicians in improving healthcare delivery systems and the development of innovative models for delivering higher value healthcare.
Dr. Platchek has been active nationally and internationally in promoting physician engagement in Lean healthcare management. He is a founder and co-convener of the international Lean Healthcare Academic Conference and has advised health care systems across the United States and Australia on performance improvement, including the Departments of Health in Victoria and Western Australia which have adopted junior doctor healthcare redesign programs using a continuous improvement model. He is an active speaker with over 50 invited presentations and abstracts across the United States and internationally.
In 2011, with Dr. Arnold Milstein, Dr. Platchek created the Clinical Excellence Research Center Fellowship which engages elite post-doctoral clinicians and scientists in value incentivized healthcare delivery innovation using human centered design methodology, bright spots research and cost analysis. The CERC fellowship is the first of its kind, focused primarily on lowering the cost to deliver great healthcare. The care models produced have been published in top journals and many are in use across the United States. Dozens of fellows have graduated from the program and have gone on to take leadership positions in universities, healthcare delivery systems, professional services firms, and venture based healthcare startups.