Kenneth Samet

MedStar Health President and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth A. Samet is responsible for a $7.7 billion healthcare delivery system. With more than 40 years of experience in healthcare administration, Samet provides strategic oversight and management for MedStar Health—the largest healthcare provider in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., region, comprised of 10 hospitals, a comprehensive network of health-related businesses that includes ambulatory, home health, a large multispecialty physician network, and an insurance product with approximately 170,000 members. MedStar Health has large research and innovation platforms and one of the largest graduate medical education programs in the country. In addition, MedStar Health is one of the region’s largest employers, with more than 34,000 associates and 4,000 affiliated physicians, serving more than a million patients and their families each year. MedStar Health is proud to be the long-standing clinical and medical education partner of Georgetown University.

Prior to becoming MedStar Health’s president and chief executive officer in January of 2008, Samet served as president and chief operating officer of MedStar Health from 1998–2008. From 1990 to 2000, he served as president of MedStar Washington Hospital Center, one of the nation’s largest tertiary care hospitals, in the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2000.

Samet is presently a member of the board of directors of a number of organizations to include: Greater Washington Partnership, Economic Club of Washington, Georgetown University, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles), the Greater Washington Board of Trade and United Way of the National Capital Area. He has held leadership positions on the boards of the American Hospital Association (AHA), District of Columbia Hospital Association (DCHA) and Maryland Hospital Association (MHA), and served on the board of visitors for the University of Maryland School of Nursing. Samet is also a past board member of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Old Dominion University Board of Visitors, where he received his bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1980 and an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2012 following his commencement address to the school’s graduating class. He received his master’s degree in health services administration from the University of Michigan in 1982. In 1996, the American College of Healthcare Executives named Samet the national Young Healthcare Administrator of the Year. More recently, Samet was honored with the Anti-Defamation League 2015 Achievement Award, inducted as a 2016 Laureate into the Washington Business Hall of Fame, and in 2021 received the B’nai B’rith Charles S. Lauer National Healthcare Award.