Catholic Health East: Latest News

Vice President, Clinical Transformation Appointed by Catholic Health East

January 9, 2008

Kathleen Meredith

NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA – Catholic Health East (CHE), one of the nation's leading Catholic health care systems, announced the recent appointment of Kathleen Meredith as vice president, clinical transformation.

In this newly created position, Meredith will work to enhance CHE's care delivery through process redesign and automation as CHE implements its preferred delivery model for 2017, including the design and implementation of its comprehensive care management strategy and initiatives. Her special area of expertise is in redesigning processes to improve quality, safety and efficiency, especially when the solution includes deployment of information technology as part of the redesign.

Prior to joining CHE, Meredith served as director of clinical transformation for Texas-based Perot Systems, a worldwide provider of information technology and business solutions. Before that, she completed a broad array of projects with various health care providers for companies such as IBM, CSC, Cap-Gemini and William Mercer.

"Kathleen brings over 15 years of experience in clinical transformation to Catholic Health East," said Tom Garthwaite, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer for Catholic Health East. "As our facilities face the challenges of changing clinical processes, upgrading technology, and improving clinical quality and patient safety, Kathleen's intimate knowledge and familiarity with the complexities and intricacies of the clinical transformation process will help advance this critically important initiative system-wide."

"I'm excited about the opportunity to partner with our health care organizations nationwide to make a real difference in the clinical transformation process," said Meredith. "By more effectively aligning our physicians and colleagues with current and future technologies and clinical processes, we can improve patient care delivery system-wide and truly enhance CHE's Mission of being a transforming, healing presence in the communities we serve."

Meredith's health care career began at the bedside and then as nursing supervisor at St. Elizabeth's Hospital Medical Center in Youngstown, OH and continued as nurse manager at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In addition to her RN, she earned a master's degree in nursing administration from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's in business administration from Penn's Wharton School.

Catholic Health East is a multi-institutional Catholic health system, which is co-sponsored by 12 religious congregations and Hope Ministries, a Public Juridic Person within Catholic Health East. Based in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, the system provides the means to ensure the continuation of the Catholic identity and operational strength of the Sponsors' health ministries, which are located within 11 eastern states from Maine to Florida.

The System includes acute care hospitals, free-standing and hospital-based skilled nursing facilities, residential facilities, free-standing behavioral health and rehabilitation facilities, and numerous ambulatory and community based health services. Catholic Health East facilities employ approximately 50,000 full time employees as partners in ministry.

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