James E. Orlikoff is president of Orlikoff & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in health care governance and leadership, strategy, quality, patient safety, and organizational development. He is the National Advisor on Governance and Leadership to the American Hospital Association and Health Forum. He was named one of the 100 most powerful people in healthcare in the inaugural list by Modern Healthcare magazine.

Mr. Orlikoff has been involved in leadership, quality, and strategy issues for over forty years. He has consulted with hospitals and systems in twelve countries, and since 1985 has worked with hospital and system governing boards to strengthen their overall effectiveness and their oversight of strategy and quality. He has worked extensively on improving the relationships between boards, medical staffs, and management. He has written fifteen books and over 100 articles and has served on hospital, college, and civic boards. He is the Chair of the Board of the St. Charles Health System in Bend, OR., and was the Vice Chair of the Virginia Mason Health System Board in Seattle, WA, and chair of their Governance Committee until hitting his term limit.

He is an author of the book Board Work: Governing Health Care Organizations, which won the ACHE James A. Hamilton Book of the Year award for 2000. He is the primary author of The Future of Health Care Governance: Redesigning Boards for a New Era; the primary author of the best selling book The Board’s Role in Quality Care: A Practical Guide For Hospital Trustees. He is the primary author of Malpractice Prevention and Liability Control for Hospitals Second edition. He is also the author of Quality from the Top: Working with Hospital Governing Boards to Assure Quality Care.

Mr. Orlikoff received his M.A. in social and organizational psychology from the University of Chicago, and his B.A. from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA.