Karen Matsuoka PhD

Karen Matsuoka, Ph.D., is a social entrepreneur, health policy expert, and thought leader at the intersection of health and health care innovation, human-centered design, and policy. A Rhodes Scholar with significant experience in private, public, and academic sectors, Dr. Matsuoka is committed to bridging private sector, policy, academic, and health administration fields to spur health care innovation, redesign health systems to be more patient-centered, and translate evidence into clinical and policy practice.

Prior to launching her own design and consulting practice, Dr. Matsuoka served as the inaugural Director of Health Systems and Infrastructure for the Maryland Department of Health, a new department established in 2012 in anticipation of health reform implementation. During her tenure, Dr. Matsuoka led policy and planning for several high-profile health reform initiatives for the state of Maryland, including Maryland’s State Innovation Model (SIM) Design initiative, Planning for Access, and the State Health Improvement Process (SHIP).

At the national Federal level, Dr. Matsuoka has served as a health economist and policy analyst for the White House Office of Management and Budget and co-lead on health information technology (IT) for the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. Much of her work eventually made its way into the HITECH Act, including the idea of tying incentives to the “meaningful use” of health IT, redirecting the focus of IT legislation towards improving health care quality and outcomes rather than viewing health IT adoption as an end in itself.

Dr. Matsuoka has also lectured at the University of Oxford, conducted research at the RAND Corporation, and served as Research Director for the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, where she managed a diverse health reform portfolio including the Center fPlanningcare and Medicaid Innovation, alignment of Federal and state health reform efforts, as well as health IT and its applications for clinical quality improvement, payment reform, performance measurement, and evidence development. Dr. Matsuoka earned her D.Phil. and M.Phil. in Social Policy from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and her BA and MA from Stanford University. She is currently a Guest Scholar at the Stanford d.school in the Designing Creative Organizations program.