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Dr. Nancy DeZellar Walsh is a successful healthcare executive with over 40 years’ experience in executive leadership roles, clinical operations, strategic planning, quality and safety, and process improvement. She is a skilled communicator who serves as a catalyst and implementation expert for organizational and strategic change in complex organizations. She has extensive experience with culture creation; project management, including rapid-cycle improvement work; a strong record of results; a no-nonsense approach to improving safety, care, and service for patients and families; and a focus on engaging staff and provider teams.
Dr. Walsh excelled in roles from the bedside to the C-suite, including Operations VP, CNO, and Senior VP for Healthcare Improvement. Her career goals have been to improve safety, care, and service to patients, families, and teams. This focus drove her to start a consulting practice in 2002. The bulk of her portfolio has focused on creating an exceptional patient experience, culture change, and implementation of High Reliability Organization (HRO) principles on both local and national levels. She has facilitated hundreds of improvement projects in hospitals, academic centers, dental and medical clinics, and health plans.
Most recently, she served as an executive leader coach for the Veterans Health Administration for five years, assisting leaders in medical centers, clinics, integrated service networks, and the central offices in Washington, DC with the design, implementation, evaluation, and sustainment of HRO practices.
She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree (field not specified), and earned a Master’s Degree in Nursing Administration and a Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Minnesota. Additionally, Dr. Walsh is on the faculty of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge, MA, with a particular interest in Joy in Work. She is also a national speaker on HRO, patient and family experience, and psychological safety.
In her free time, she loves to travel, cook, garden, read, and spend time with her growing family.
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