James A. Block, MD (1940-2023)

James A. Block, MD was the president of J. A. Block Health Associates, a consulting firm working with the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and the National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC) since 2005, as well with the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and other leading health care institutions. Dr. Block's many years of strategic guidance were instrumental to CAPC’s work. He was a trailblazer in health care, and a lifelong champion for the most vulnerable.

Dr. Block was the former president and chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Health System and Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He was president and chief executive officer of University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, and president of Rochester Area Hospital Corporation.

Dr. Block also served as an adjunct professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and as a clinical associate professor of preventive, family, and rehabilitative medicine and adjunct professor of health policy management both at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In 2010 he received the first-ever American Cancer Society Pathfinder in Palliative Care Award.