Board of Directors
Dr. Jack Kitts MD, MBA
Dr. Jack Kitts received his medical degree from the University of Ottawa in 1980. After a 3-year tour of duty as a medical officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, he specialized in anesthesiology and completed a research fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He joined the Department of Anesthesia at the Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1988, where he served as the director of research and medical director of the preoperative assessment clinic prior to his appointment as Chief of the department and Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, faculty of medicine.
In 1998, Dr. Kitts was appointed Vice-President of Medical Affairs and led the medical staff during a complex restructuring in which three hospitals and five large programs were merged into The Ottawa Hospital. He completed his master’s degree in business administration in 2001 and was named President and CEO of The Ottawa Hospital in February 2002, a position he held until his retirement on June 26, 2020.
With more than I,000 beds, 12,000 employees and approximately 1,400 physicians, The Ottawa Hospital is recognized as one of the largest and most important research and teaching hospitals in Canada. Its research institute is one of the foremost institutes in Canada, involving more than 1500\ scientists, clinical investigators, trainees and staff.
Dr. Kitts’ inclusive team-oriented strategic leadership, passion for delivering quality patient-centered care, and the development and mentoring of emerging healthcare leaders, has been a central, unifying force in establishing and sustaining The Ottawa Hospital’s vision – To provide each patient with the world-class care, exceptional service and compassion that we would want for our loved ones. Dr. Kitts is known nationally for his focus and expertise in patient experience, performance measurement and physician engagement, which make him a sought-after advisor and inspirational speaker on these key topics in healthcare today.
ELLIS M. “MAC” KNIGHT, M.D., MBA, FACP, FACHE, FHM
Mac Knight is the chief operating officer of IHO. He has nearly 50 years of experience in the healthcare arena.
Dr. Knight graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Biology and received his Doctor of Medicine degree cum laude from the University of Oregon Health Science Center’s School of Medicine. He earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
He is a board-certified internist/hospitalist elected to fellowship in the inaugural class of fellows named by the Society of Hospital Medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians. His most recent clinical/academic appointment was with the Emory University’s School of Medicine faculty, where he practiced at one of the largest public hospitals in the country—Grady Memorial in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Knight served in several senior executive roles for Palmetto Health (now Prisma Health), the most extensive healthcare system in South Carolina, after their merger with Greenville Health System. As the SVP for Ambulatory Services, he oversaw Palmetto Health’s employed physician network and ambulatory services division (rehab, lab, home health, hospice care, and imaging), and as the Chief Physician and Integration Officer, he helped to develop and manage their clinically integrated network (the Palmetto Health Quality Collaborative, now known as Prisma’sInVio Health Network). This network has become the largest clinically integrated network in the state, with more than 1000 participating providers.
At Coker Group, a national healthcare advisory firm, Dr. Knight served as a Senior VP and the Chief Medical Officer for Coker Group. He developed a suite of Services (Value Pathtm ) designed to smooth the transition for healthcare organizations from a volume to a value business model. He also oversaw Coker’s Revenue and Quality Integrity (RQI) services, which offered expert services in coding, compliance, and clinical documentation to healthcare organizations of all types. Mac Knight is familiar with the management and operations of rural hospitals, community hospitals, public hospitals, large health systems (including academic medical centers), and physician practices of all types and specialties.
Finally, Dr. Knight’s overarching belief is that healthcare delivery must improve the value (defined as quality per unit of cost) to the patients served. One of the cornerstones in making this happen is for every hospital and physician practice to understand and adopt the core methodology developed and promoted by the IHO. If is his belief that clinical quality, patient satisfaction, staff satisfaction, and financial performance can all be improved in this way. As a member of the IHO board and its senior executive team he is committed to making this happen.
“Dr. Bob” Robert G. Lahita, M.D., Ph.D. (Wayne, NJ)
Director of the Institute for Autoimmune and Rheumatic Disease at St. Joseph’s Health in Paterson, New Jersey. He is a Master of the American College of Rheumatology and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians in London. His research interests are the molecular aspects of antigen expression in reproductive immunology, the effects of sex and gender on autoimmune diseases, and the etiopathogenesis of the phospholipid syndrome.
Dr. Lahita is the author or editor of more than 16 books and 150 scientific publications in autoimmunity. He is the editor of the standard textbook in its 6th edition called Lahita’s Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and was the senior editor of the Textbook of Autoimmunity and co-editor of the Yearbook of Rheumatology. He is also the author of several books for lay audiences: Lupus: Q&A; Autoimmunity in Women, the way the body betrays itself; and finally, Immunity Strong (released Jan 5, 2022).
Dr. Lahita is a Professor of Medicine at the new Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. He proudly served as an Associate Professor in immunology for 11 years in the legendary Henry G. Kunkel laboratory at Rockefeller University in New York City. While at Rockefeller, he was an adjunct professor at Weill-Cornell Medical School, Hospital for Special Surgery, and he worked in rheumatology with Dr. Charles Christian. Dr. Lahita also worked in the laboratory of Dr. Lewis Thomas at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He was also an associate Professor at Columbia University for over a decade. Before his current work, Dr. Lahita was Chair of Medicine at Saint Joseph Medical Center, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, and Jersey City Medical Center and was Division Director of Rheumatic Disease for many years at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. He also served as Division Chief of Rheumatology at Saint Vincent Hospital in New York City and as a professor at NYMC. He has trained countless medical students, residents, and fellows during his career, spanning over 50 years.
Dr. Lahita reviews about 15 medical journals and is on the editorial boards of three. He has also been an associate editor for the Lupus International Journal since 2004.
Dr. Lahita has been a volunteer emergency responder since 1990 and was featured in the recent documentary Memory Box: Echoes of 9/11. Dr Lahita was present during the 911 attacks on America and is featured in many works like the “Faces of Ground Zero” and others. He has been the volunteer medical director of the Village of Ridgewood, NJ (since 1990) and medical director of the Borough of Saddle River, NJ.
Media worldwide, including Reuters, Newsmax, Fox Business, Fox News, NBC Now, MSNBC, EWTN, CBSN, LxNBC, Newsnation, and other national and international media constantly consult Dr. Lahita, an expert on immunity, autoimmune disease, and rheumatic disease.
Eugene Litvak, PhD – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
is President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Optimization. He is also an Adjunct Professor in Operations Management in the Department of Health Policy & Management at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), where he teaches the course “Operations Management in Service Delivery Organizations”. Prior to his current position, he was a co-founder (with Michael C. Long, MD) and director of the Program for the Management of Variability in Health Care Delivery at the Boston University (BU) Health Policy Institute and a Professor at the BU School of Management. Before joining Boston University Dr. Litvak was a faculty member at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. He was the co-author of the innovative cost-effective protocols in screening for HIV and hepatitis, which reduce the cost of screening by a factor of 5 to 10 while simultaneously reducing errors by a factor of 20 to 40. These protocols have been positively evaluated by FDA, NIH and CDC, which were the subject of a large-scale international trial supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development as well as Chiron and Roche pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Litvak served as a Principal Investigator from the U.S. for this trial.
Dr. Litvak is an author of more than 60 publications in the areas of operations management in healthcare delivery organizations. He was the editor of The Joint Commission’s patient flow books “Managing Patient Flow in Hospitals: Strategies and Solutions”, 2nd Edition and “Optimizing Patient Flow: Advanced Strategies for Managing Variability to Enhance Access, Quality, and Safety” as well as the leader of the organization’s first patient flow seminars. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine (currently the National Academy of Medicine) Committees “The Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System”, “The Learning Health Care System in America” and “Optimizing Scheduling in Health Care.” Dr. Litvak also served as a member of the “National Advisory Committee to the American Hospital Association for Improving Quality, Patient Safety and Performance”. Currently, he serves on the Executive Leadership Council, Strategic Innovation Engine, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Since 1995 he has led the development and practical application of innovative approaches for managing patient flow variability (introduced by him and Dr. Long) for cost reduction and quality improvement in health care delivery systems. Application of these approaches has resulted in significant quality improvement and multimillion-dollar improvements in the margins for every hospital that has applied them. He is also Principal Investigator in many hospital and hospital systems operations improvement projects. These include CMS sponsored initiative “Partnership for Patients” in NJ and nationwide patient flow initiative in Scotland.
William “Bill” P. Pierskalla, Ph.D.
is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Decisions, Operations and Technology Management in the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He is also the Ronald A. Rosenfeld Professor Emeritus, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He was Dean of the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. He holds the A.B. in Economics and M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University, an M.A. in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh and a M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University. His interests include operations research, operations management, issues of global competition and the management and delivery aspects of health care delivery.
Dr. Pierskalla is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA). He was President of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies. He is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Encyclopedia of Operations Research & Management Science, Health Systems Journal and Health Care Management Science Journal and has served on many other editorial boards. He was Vice President for Publications of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences. He was President of the Operations Research Society of America, and is a past Editor-in Chief of Operations Research. He is the 1989 recipient of the George E. Kimball Medal for distinguished service to the Operations Research Society of America and to the field of Operations Research and the 2005 INFORMS President’s Award given to work that advances the welfare of society.
Previously he was the Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs, the Director of the Huntsman Center for Global Competition and Leadership, Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and the Chairman of the Health Care Systems Department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his positions at Wharton, he was on the faculties of Northwestern University, Southern Methodist University and Case Institute of Technology and has worked at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. He is a current board member of the Institute for Healthcare Optimization. He was a board member of the Archibald Bush Foundation (chairman 2002-2007), the Griffin Funds, Northern Trust Bank of California, the iRise Corporation, Northern Wilderness Adventures Inc., Phoenix Health Systems Corp. and Office Tenants Network Corporation. He has consulted to many business, educational and governmental organizations. He has given numerous lectures and seminars at Universities and organizations in the North and South Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia and has published articles in mathematical programming, transportation, inventory and production control, maintainability and health care delivery. For more information, please visit http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/william.pierskalla/