Dr. Michael Kanter is the regional medical director of Quality & Clinical Analysis for the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. Dr. Kanter is also the executive for Quality & Care Delivery Excellence, chief medical officer of the National Permanente Federation and chair of the National Permanente Quality Council.

He oversees the following areas within Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California region: quality, clinical analysis and clinical practice guidelines, utilization of drugs, medical imaging and laboratory services, health education, patient safety, physician education, research and evaluation, innovation, residency programs and physician education, purchaser engagement and marketing, as well as measurement of access and service.

Dr. Kanter has authored more than 55 articles published in peer-review journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association and authored chapters in five books.

Dr. Kanter is a frequent invited speaker for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), National Patient Safety Foundation and other major organizations on a variety of topics, including the proactive office encounter, Complete Care, ambulatory patient safety and the patient safety net, how to improve the patient care experience, language concordance, and health disparities. He has participated in the Institute of Medicine Committee on Diagnostic Errors and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Systems Engineering for healthcare report on accelerating improvement through systems engineering. He is the chair of the Practice Improvement Committee of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine.

He’s also a member of the Standards Committee of NCQA, the National Committee for Quality Assurance.