Healthcare Quality Veteran Joins NAHQ to Lead Delivery of Suite of Offerings to Healthcare Organizations

CHICAGO (June 21, 2021) — The National Association for Healthcare Quality^® (NAHQ®), the only organization dedicated to healthcare quality professionals, has announced the addition of Edward (Ted) Donnelly, MHA BSN RN, as Senior Vice President, Organizational Workforce Solutions. In this newly created senior management role, Donnelly, a 25-year veteran of healthcare and healthcare quality, will lead NAHQ’s efforts in supporting organizations across the continuum of care in their effort to reduce variability in healthcare quality competencies through a suite of offerings that includes NAHQ’s newest solution, Workforce Accelerator^TM.

“NAHQ believes that to reduce variability in healthcare delivery, we must first reduce variability in healthcare quality competencies. We are excited to welcome Ted to NAHQ and look forward to benefitting from his leadership and deep experience in healthcare quality,” said Stephanie Mercado, CAE CPHQ, CEO and Executive Director at NAHQ. “Having personally worked directly with Ted on projects in healthcare quality within a large hospital system, I have admired his orientation toward continuous improvement and workforce development. His leadership will be integral to our emerging Workforce Accelerator solution, as we extend our mission beyond our connection to individual contributors by advancing the needs of the enterprise.”

Donnelly has professional roots in nursing, holds a Master of Health Administration from Villanova University and most recently spent nearly 11 years in quality management roles at Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS) in the Greater Philadelphia area, leading work in the Clinical Operations Improvement Team for most of the past decade. His first role at UHS was with the Clinical Integration and Outcomes Group. Other prior professional roles in healthcare for Donnelly include a stint as Field Vice President for Premier, Inc. and as a director of consulting services at Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems.

“NAHQ brings unique expertise to healthcare leaders looking to address the complex system of people doing care delivery, coordination, and management, and quality and performance improvement efforts,” Donnelly said. “I experienced this first-hand as I implemented Workforce Accelerator for a group of team members at UHS in 2020. I am thrilled to now have the professional opportunity to help other organizations prepare their healthcare quality and safety workforce to address the challenges facing healthcare today.”

Through Workforce Accelerator, NAHQ works with organizations to understand their quality and safety initiatives, priorities and goals; assess the work of their quality and safety team against NAHQ’s twice-validated Healthcare Quality Competency Framework using NAHQ’s validated Professional Assessment, and; develop a multi-year upskilling plan that addresses both organizational priorities and individual competency development opportunities.

“An increasing number of healthcare organizations recognize healthcare quality workforce readiness is the key to meeting the challenges facing healthcare today,” Donnelly said. “Recognizing standardization is the key to improving quality, Workforce Accelerator is geared toward organizations looking to take a systematic approach to creating the quality management staff of the future by pinpointing upskilling efforts for their quality professionals by design, based on the industry standard NAHQ Healthcare Quality Competency Framework.

Added Donnelly, “In my estimation, there is no other solution like this for healthcare organizations looking to assess and upskill their quality workforce to leverage better and faster results.”

About NAHQ

The National Association for Healthcare Quality^® (NAHQ) is the only organization dedicated to healthcare quality professionals, defining the standard of excellence for the profession, and equipping professionals and organizations across the continuum of healthcare to meet these standards. NAHQ believes that to reduce variability in healthcare delivery, we must first reduce variability in healthcare quality competencies, so we focus our efforts on healthcare quality competencies and workforce development. NAHQ published the first and only Healthcare Quality Competency Framework and validated it twice in the market. We offer the only accredited certification in healthcare quality, the Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality^® (CPHQ), extensive educational programming, networking opportunities and career resources to help healthcare quality professionals enhance their competencies and their value. Learn more at NAHQ.org.

About Workforce Accelerator

Workforce Accelerator™ is a scalable three-phase solution for healthcare organizations to partner with NAHQ to accelerate their quality journey—assessing, designing and upskilling, to leverage their quality workforce. Workforce Accelerator will help organizations to prioritize their opportunities to accelerate achievement of their quality and performance improvement goals, transforming your workforce into a Quality Force. NAHQ is launching Workforce Accelerator^TM in 2021. Interested organizations should contact Scott Woodard, NAHQ Director of Workforce Solutions, at swoodard@nahq.org or visit NAHQ.org/workforceaccelerator.