ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Rajiv Sethi, who led the Seattle Spine Score initiative to make spine surgery outcomes more consistent and effective, speaks to MedTech Strategist about his move from Virginia Mason in Seattle to UCSF. His expansive new remit includes research and implementation of value-based care initiatives in MSK disorders. One example: a quantitative scoring system he and colleagues are proposing for evaluating new technologies aims to reduce variability and subjectivity in decision making.
Rajiv Sethi, MD, PhD, is the new chief of orthopaedic spine surgery at the University of California, San Francisco and UCSF system medical director of value-based musculoskeletal initiatives. An internationally recognized expert in complex spinal surgeries, he joined UCSF in April 2026, after 12 years as the executive medical director of the Neuroscience Institute at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, where he was also a full clinical professor.
Sethi has published extensively on patient safety, value-based spine care, and healthcare economics, and perhaps is best known for championing the Seattle Spine Team Protocol for complex adult deformity surgery, which is used by many spine surgery centers globally. Most recently, he and colleagues at Virginia Mason proposed an Enabling Technology Value Index (ETVI) for evaluating new technologies using a quantitative composite score that reduces subjectivity and variability in decision-making. Much of his research focuses on better risk stratification and patient experiences in spine surgery.
Sethi received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, and was chief resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, and later was a Fulbright Scholar in Public Health in Israel and Jordan.
MedTech Strategist spoke with Sethi recently on what he hopes to accomplish at one of the nation’s most important academic medical centers during a period of confusing upheaval in medicine and in spine surgery, both clinically and structurally, and rapidly rising costs, which the US is struggling to reign in. (This discussion has been edited for length and clarity.)
