Consultant Profiles

Siobhan Sharkey, MBA, Principal

“Ms. Sharkey has over 20 years of experience in health care clinical practice improvement initiatives and implementation of clinical systems. Her focus has been evaluating opportunities for process-centered performance improvement, analyzing workflow to align processes to meet outcomes, project managing multi-site quality improvement efforts, and facilitating implementation of clinical and business improvement initiatives using IT.

Areas of expertise include process and quality improvement tools, data analysis, analytical methods and techniques, project management, organizational change/restructuring strategies, developing cross-functional team workplans (product management, software development, and deployment).

Previous experiences include Vice President of Corporate Strategy for an Internet-based health care technology business, Internal Quality Consultant for clinical practice improvement and administrative redesign efforts within Intermountain Health Care (IHC), and Senior Research Associate in health care consulting at APM, Inc.

Siobhan received her MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School and a BA in Applied Mathematics/Economics from Yale University

Experiences include working with integrated health systems and large hospitals to analyze patient flow and facilitate redesign of inpatient throughput and case management processes. Coached management in strategic design efforts to develop and implement new processes of bed flow coordination and patient discharge. Additional experience redesigning large health plan’s medical management model. Efforts resulted in establishing disease management initiatives in diabetes, CHF, and asthma, defining clinical and financial outcome measurements for on-going reporting of provider performance, and reducing medical management operating expense by 25%.

Currently Project Director for 3 AHRQ-funded projects in long term care led by Dr. Susan Horn. Major objectives of the projects include: standardize data element requirements, incorporate standardized data elements into clinical documentation processes (CNA and entire care team); redesign clinical workflow to implement process improvements, and integrate use of real-time reports into care planning, and implement HIT for RNs and CNAs. Results to date include 30% reduction in pressure ulcer incidence and 50% reduction in CNA documentation forms.

Projects Siobhan has worked on include working with physician practices to t ranslate requirements and workflow analysis into software product functional specifications (i.e., clinic note documentation, order communication and results reporting, gathering of patient reported information, and review of past clinical information). Responsible for m anaging the project plan, clinical content definition, template development, and workflow redesign for NextGen EMR system implementation in large orthopedic practice (services include: orthopedic clinic, rehab medicine, behavioral health, physical therapy; 9 sites; 250 users). Led project teams, provided on-going communication to executives on progress and results, and determined ROI.