John Ovretveit

John Ovretveit

Professor, senior

Dr John Øvretveit is Professor of health care improvement implementation and evaluation at the Medical Management Centre, The Karolinska Institute, and R&D officer for Stockholm Healthcare.

About me

Director of Research, Professor of Health Innovation Implementation and Evaluation.

My applied research is into organisation, management and policy. My recent work concerns adaptive implementation and evaluation and combining quality improvement and implementation science. Projects include co-care, integration and coordination of services, and emergency medicine organisation and management.

Research description

Evaluation, quality and safety improvement, implemention science, health management policy and reforms, clinical coordination and integration of services.

My work is based on the belief that organisation and management can bring out the best and worst in people, and that the right organisation design is critical for effective healthcare. A theme underlying my work is how practical research can contribute both to better care for patients and to "healthy work organization".

I have pioneered action evaluation methods for giving rapid feedback for service providers and policy-makers to improve their services, and for assessing the role of context on implementation. My current research examines implementation of management and organisation improvements, and clinical care coordination for safety and lower costs. My research publications on leading value improvement explore the costs and savings of quality improvements.

Research group

Clinical Management, MMC, and Programme for improvement, implementation and evaluation research (PIIE)

Teaching portfolio

Courses on implementation and scale up, and on evaluating complex interventions in real world settings.

MMC leaders courses including:

Using lessons from overseas to build evidence-based Swedish healthcare 

Pay for performance and value based healthcare: evidence and implications for your services 

Patient centered care and co-care: evidence and practical steps with limited resources

Education

B.Sc. (Hons First class), MPhil., PhD., CPsychol., AFBPsS, CSci..

Academic honours, awards and prizes

Translations of some of Johns 400 scientific papers and books have been made into eight languages. Six books have won publications awards, including twice winner of the European Health Management Association Award and the Baxter health publication of the year prize for "Action Evaluation" (2002) and "Health Service Quality" (1992).

He was awarded the 2014 Avedis Donabedian international quality award for his work on quality economics and has served for 12 years as a board member of the USA joint commission international and is chair of their healthcare quality and safety standards committee. He is founder and chair of the Quality Improvement Research Network; a board member of the Global Implementation Initiative and chair of the Global Implementation Society. He currently chairs the UK selection panel for the future program of applied collaborative research University-NHS partnerships.