Kim Barnas joins ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value

The ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value welcomes long-time faculty member Kim Barnas to a new full-time role as president. Barnas is based in Appleton to support operations as she joins the leadership team. Her focus is to coach, lead and support Center teams that are working to help healthcare systems committed to:

• Transforming the patient experience
• Making quality more transparent
• Reducing healthcare costs across North America.

The Center is excited to bring Barnas’s knowledge of lean management in-house. “We are so happy to add Kim’s experience and talent to our staff,” said Center Chief Development Officer Helen Zak. “She will have an immediate impact, not only at the Center but with our members and leaders across the nation.”

As past senior vice president at ThedaCare, a seven-hospital system in Northeastern Wisconsin, Barnas played an integral role in the development of the organization’s well-known lean management system and served as a lead in the management system training. This lean management system is designed to deliver improved performance through a predictable process that develops leaders, identifies defects, solves problems and develops people.

She has a Master’s of Science in Health Care Administration from Cardinal Stritch University and wrote the Shingo award-winning book, Beyond Heroes: A Lean Management System for Healthcare.

After the book’s launch, Barnas became a senior advisor to several national and international healthcare leadership teams implementing lean. Her methods are based on the elements of the Lean Management System.

“This is an exciting time in the world of healthcare, as things continue to evolve and change, and I can think of no better place to be than at the Center,” said Barnas. “I look forward to deepening our resources and spreading the lean transformation.”