Anthony L. Suchman , MD, MA, FACP is Senior Consultant, Healthcare Consultancy. He is a practicing physician and organizational consultant, and Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Rochester.

Tony’s work focuses on partnership process across all levels of healthcare. He works with clinicians, administrators, patient advocates and board members in health care organizations worldwide to advance the practice of Relationship-Centered Care. He chaired the board of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare from 2000-2008 and is actively involved in the Plexus Institute.

Through his teaching and writing (more than 85 articles and book chapters and the book “Partnerships in Healthcare: Transforming Relational Process”) he has become a leading proponent of a partnership-based clinical approach known as Relationship-Centered Care. His most recent book, “Leading Change in Healthcare: Transforming organizations using complexity, positive psychology and Relationship-centered Care,” has just been published by Radcliffe Publishing of London and New York.

After earning his BA (psychology) and MD degrees at Cornell University, he completed a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in General Internal Medicine (clinical epidemiology and health services research) and Behavioral and Psychosocial Medicine (mind/body interactions and medical interviewing), all at the University of Rochester. Dr. Suchman studied patient-clinician relationships, medical decision-making, physician satisfaction, and the spiritual dimensions of medical care.

After 15 years of academic pursuits, Tony became interested in healthcare organizations, particularly how the values expressed in administrative processes and in the behavior of leaders affect processes of care.

To explore the potential of integrated healthcare systems to engage patients as active partners and provide coordinated, effective and humane care, he helped to found the Highland Physicians Organization and was its first Executive Director. He subsequently helped to establish the Strong Health Managed Care Organization and was its first CEO and Chief Medical Officer. He subsequently earned an MA degree in Organizational Change, studying with Ralph Stacey at the University of Hertfordshire’s Complexity and Management Centre. For more information, please go to www.rchcweb.com.