Neha Patel

About Neha

Neha’s experience includes direct patient care as a nurse along with extensive experience leading teams in various ambulatory care settings.  Most recently, she was the Senior Director of Ambulatory Medical and Surgical Specialties at Virginia Mason Medical Center. Neha is Certified in the Virginia Mason Production System ® (VMPS),  and has led numerous quality process improvement initiatives and implementations at Virginia Mason since 2013.   Neha also teaches Quality Process Management as an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health Executive Masters of Health Administration Program at the University of Washington.

Experience

• 20 years’ experience in healthcare,  including 13 years as a nurse, and 10 years in progressive leadership of  ambulatory medical and surgical specialties. 
• 6 years teaching quality process management for the EMHA program in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. 
• Facilitating  multiple process improvement workshops across ambulatory, surgery, and hospital, as well as developing daily management across these areas to achieve organizational goals. 
• Leading change through hospital merger including strategic integration of regional operations with specialty institutes. 
• Coaching  administrative  leader dyads to improve collaboration, trust, engagement, sustainable change, open communication, and mutual growth. 
• Developing standard work to improve performance in patient experience, quality, safety, and regulatory compliance with a continuous focus on  improving health equity for underserved, and vulnerable populations. 

Expertise

• Leadership development 
• Nursing 
• Collaborative dyad leadership 
• Change and transition leadership 
• Strategic planning, visioning,  and deployment  
• Engagement facilitation 
• Virginia Mason Production System® 

Publications

• Tam J, MacDonald E, Sparks DA, Zimmerman J, McNair KV, Zeitler DM, Fox TL, Patel NJ, London AE, Lee UJ. Creating an Extraordinary Experience for Women Undergoing Cystoscopy: A Patient-Centered Approach to Process Improvement. Urology. 2023 Apr;174:23-27. doi: 10.1016/j.urology.2023.01.039. Epub 2023 Feb 8. PMID: 36758731 

Podcast

• Patel, Neha. “Evolving Daily Management”. Better Never Stops. Podcast audio, February 7, 2023. 

Education & Certifications

• Executive Master of Health Care Administration 
• BS, Nursing 
• BS, Cell Biology 
• Virginia Mason Production System®  Certified Leader 
• WSHA & UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Businesswomen’s Leadership Program 
• FEMA Basic & Intro Incident Command 
• Virginia Mason Experience Based Design