Bio
Professor James T. Ziegenfuss, Jr has taught at Penn State since 1983 and is Emeritus Professor of  Management in the graduate programs in Health and Public Administration. He was founding  coordinator of the health administration program and co-founded the non-profit and human resources certificates. At the Penn State Medical College, he is Adjunct Professor of Medicine (1988 to present), co-directed the physician fellowships program in quality for ten years and has been Evaluation Coordinator for the six-year organization change project sponsored by Robert Wood Johnson/Pew (Redesigning Patient Care Systems) and for the Diversity in Medical Education Project.
Dr. Ziegenfuss has written over 150 articles for journals and conferences and has authored thirteen books. He received the distinguished service award from the American College of Medical Quality in 1999 for his contributions in education and research and has been Associate Editor of the American Journal of Medical Quality since 1989.
Dr. Ziegenfuss’ monograph, Country and Community Health Systems: The Futures and Systems Redesign Approach was presented in Madrid and was top prize in the Latin American 1998 international manuscript competition (translated to Spanish and published by the Pan American Health Organization in 1999).
A second monograph, Building Citizen Participation: The Purposes, Tools and Impact of Involvement won second prize in the international competition in 2000, was presented in Santo Domingo, and was published by the Center for Latin American Administrative Reform, Caracas, Venezuela.
In November 2004, he received a Regents Award for Senior Health Care Executives for leadership and management (American College of Healthcare Executives). At the annual meeting in Baden Baden Germany in 2005, he was elected Fellow of the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research & Cybernetics (IIAS) for his innovative research contributions to health care systems and medicine.
His 2007 book: Customer Friendly: The Organizational Architecture of Service (Rowman & Littlefield May, 2007) was named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2007 by ALA and was Book of the Year for the IIAS. His newest book is The Ombudsman Handbook: Designing and Managing an Effective Problem-Solving Program (McFarland, 2011).
He is an active consultant to public and private organizations – his education, research, and consulting work has been supported by more than 75 organizations including academic medical centers, associations, hospitals, banks and non–profit organizations.
After retiring from Penn State as Emeritus Professor of Management & Health Care Systems in early 2012, I continue to be engaged in research, writing and consulting, primarily in the health care field and in management functions. I remain Associate Editor of the American Journal of Medical Quality, serve on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Medical Quality, and provide reviews for several academic journals. My consulting continues to be in strategy and development, serving both public and private sectors. I am working on two new books to be published in 2014-15 (Patients’ Designs for Health System Reform and Failing Cities: Cases of Financial, Legal & Urban Bankruptcy).