Suzanne F. Delbanco on the Leapfrog Group and employer purchasing power. Interview by Pamela K. Scarrow

Suzanne F. Delbanco, PhD MPH, is the first executive director of The Leapfrog Group, founded by the Business Roundtable. The Leapfrog Group's goal is to mobilize employer purchasing power to initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality, and overall value of healthcare for American consumers. The group's growing consortium of more than 155 Fortune 500 companies and other large private and public healthcare purchasers provides health benefits to more than 34 million Americans; these companies spend more than 62 billion dollars on healthcare annually. Dr. Delbanco is a member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance Purchaser Advisory Council and a board member of Bridges to Excellence. Before joining The Leapfrog Group, she was a senior manager at the Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH), where she worked on the quality team. Prior to joining PBGH, she worked on reproductive health policy and the changing healthcare marketplace initiative at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. She has also consulted on health insurance coverage in the temporary employment industry and on the first statewide survey in California of MediCal beneficiaries, and worked as a community Liaison for Kaiser Permanente during the establishment of one of California's first County Organized Health Systems. She holds a PhD in public policy from the Goldman School of Public PoLicy and a MPH from the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.