A Conversation with Kate Walsh: President and CEO, Boston Medical Center
Please join your colleagues and friends for this unique Forum led by Nancy O’Hare, WHCM Board member and Health Care Strategist for Winchester Hospital. She will interview using a fireside chat style to encourage a relaxed, informal, interactive discussion with Kate Walsh. Attendees will have an opportunity to hear about Kate’s career path, environmental influences that supported her decisions, and how she manages the challenges of the changing health care arena. Her extensive background prior to her current position at BMC includes serving as Executive VP and COO at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and COO for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
About Kate Walsh:
Kate Walsh became the president and CEO of Boston Medical Center (BMC) on March 1, 2010.
BMC is a private, not-for-profit, 508-bed, academic medical center with a community-based focus. The primary teaching affiliate of Boston University School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center has approximately 5,000 employees, 1,300 physicians and an annual operating budget of roughly $1 billion. BMC is a founder of Boston HealthNet, a network affiliation of the Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine and 15 community health centers. Boston HealthNet, is an integrated health care delivery system whose partners provide outreach, prevention, primary care, specialty care and dental services at sites located throughout Boston’s neighborhoods and Quincy.
In addition to the Medical Center and its affiliated health community health centers, BMC owns and operates the BMC HealthNet Plan, a statewide Medicaid Managed Care Organization with more than 250,000 members across the Commonwealth.
Prior to her appointment at Boston Medical Center, Ms. Walsh served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Brigham and Women’s Hospital for five years. During her tenure, Brigham and Women’s Hospital moved its patient satisfaction scores to the 95th percentile of benchmark institutions nationally, produced strong operating results based on consistent ambulatory and inpatient growth and set a new standard in patient-focused multidisciplinary care with the opening of the Carl J and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center.
She served previously as the chief operating officer for Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
Ms. Walsh began her career in health care as a summer intern at Brookside Health Center in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. Upon finishing graduate school, she worked as a shift supervisor in the emergency department at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in the Bronx. From there Ms. Walsh moved to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Saint Luke’s – Roosevelt Hospital Center and the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. She relocated to Boston and joined Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) as an assistant general director in medical services and was promoted to vice president of medical services and primary care and then to senior vice president of medical services and the MGH Cancer Center.
Ms. Walsh received her bachelor’s of arts degree and a master’s degree in public health from Yale University. She also is a member of the Board of Visitors for Northeastern University’s School of Business and is on the Board of Trustees at Emmanuel College.
Ms. Walsh, a native of Brookline, is married and has two children.
