John Ovretveit PhD

Dr. John Ovretveit is Director of Research and Professor of health care innovation implementation and evaluation at the Medical Management Centre, The Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, and previously Professor of Health Policy and Management at Bergen University Medical School, Norway, and at the Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden. He currently holds visiting professor appointments at UCLA school of public health, The VA implementation science center, The University of New South Wales, Australia, London City University, and Erasmus University, The Netherlands.

John’s work is based on the belief that organization and management can bring out the best and worst in people, and that the right organizational design is critical for effective healthcare. A theme underlying his work is how practical research can contribute both to better care for patients and to “healthy work organization”. Much of his work uses different social sciences to explain and predict events and processes in health care and clinical practice. He was awarded the 2014 Avedis Donabedian international quality award for his work on quality economics.

His current research examines the implementation of management and organization improvements, clinical care coordination for safety and lower costs, and using digital health technologies to improve health and healthcare. His research publications on leading value improvement explore the costs and savings of quality improvements.

John is a Norwegian-Brit with expertise in the fields of health service quality, health management, organization, evaluation, interprofessional cooperation, and health reforms. He has undertaken health evaluation and development projects in a number of African countries, Yemen, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Baltic countries, and the USA.