Shawna O’Neill is a Managing Director in Kaufman Hall’s Performance Improvement practice. Her experience as a nurse, a hospital administrator (both COO & CNO), and a consultant gives her a unique perspective on the clinical and social dynamics at play in today’s healthcare environments. She understands the complexity of hospital operations and how to make them run more smoothly, including increasing throughput and meeting regulatory expectations while accounting for every step within a given process.

Ms. O’Neill has more than 30 years of healthcare experience in performance improvement for mid-size hospitals to academic medical centers. She leads integrated process improvement engagements and performs focus area improvements in workforce, length of stay/patient flow, and quality. Her greatest assets are attention to detail, building relationships and trust, and the innate ability to assess an organization quickly. These abilities allow the identification of bottlenecks and the implementation of sustainable solutions that yield improved quality and efficiency.

Prior to joining Kaufman Hall, she was a Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group (BRG), where she led integrated performance improvement engagements. She was also a Principal at Compass Clinical Consulting and Owner/Partner of O’Neill Healthcare Resources. In these roles she focused on workforce, throughput, and operations management improvement for hospitals across the country. Before becoming a consultant, she was the COO/CNO for Mercy Hospital Fairfield and Hamilton.

Ms. O’Neill holds an M.H.A. from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a B.S.N. from the University of Cincinnati. She received her Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from Villanova University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.