SEATTLE – (July 13, 2016) — Kerry Shannon has been named senior vice president of Strategy and Business Development for Virginia Mason Health System, effective July 1.

Shannon has 30 years of management consulting experience and spent the last 18 months consulting with Virginia Mason to evaluate strategic opportunities. In her new position she will evaluate, develop and implement growth and business development strategies that align with and enhance organizational priorities and strategic direction. She reports to Chairman and CEO Gary S. Kaplan, MD.

“This is a team sport,” Shannon said. “Work in business development must reflect the soul and objectives of an organization. Virginia Mason wants to play in the heart of everything quality.”

Since April 2015, she served as managing director, Healthcare Strategic Solutions for Navigant Consulting, Inc. At Navigant, her national practice focused on affiliations, partnerships and transformation engagements. Shannon has worked with several hundred organizations during her career, from the University of California system to Harvard.

In 2012, she earned a Master of Arts in Bioethics and Health Policy from Loyola Stritch School of Medicine. She added that to a Master of Science in Industrial Relations from Loyola University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Biology from Northwestern University.

In the 1980s, Shannon was manager of the Outpatient Laboratory at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. While there, she started a for-profit outpatient laboratory, which became the first such outpatient lab in the country to operate with a separate Medicare provider number.

Following a stint at Ernst and Young as senior consultant through manager, she joined PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) as national director of the Healthcare Provider Planning Practice. At PwC, she directed many projects focused on strategy, clinical service lines, processes and functions, including all aspects of ambulatory and inpatient care. She also guided planning for operational and physical integration of services among hospitals within health care systems.

In 2006, Shannon served as a national director of Healthcare Provider Planning and Operations for Computer Services Corporation (CSC) where she led a group of more than 50 delivery consultants who assisted health care provider clients with planning, clinical operations improvement and clinical transformation.

In 2010, she became senior managing director for Healthcare Strategy and Planning at FTI Consulting. There she led consultants providing enterprise-wide strategic planning, service-line planning and business planning. 

About Virginia Mason Health System
Virginia Mason, founded in 1920, is a nonprofit regional health care system based in Seattle that serves the Pacific Northwest. In the Puget Sound region, the system includes 336-bed Virginia Mason Hospital; a primary and specialty care group practice of more than 500 physicians; regional medical centers in Seattle, Bainbridge Island, Bellevue, Federal Way, Kirkland, Issaquah and Lynnwood; Bailey-Boushay House, the first skilled-nursing and outpatient chronic care management program in the U.S. designed and built specifically to meet the needs of people with HIV/AIDS; Benaroya Research Institute, which is internationally recognized for autoimmune disease research; and Virginia Mason Institute, which trains health care professionals and others from around the world in the Virginia Mason Production System, an innovative management methodology for continually improving quality, safety and efficiency. Virginia Mason online: VirginiaMason.org

Virginia Mason also includes Yakima-based Memorial Family of Services and Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, a 226-bed facility serving the Yakima Valley in Central Washington since 1950. Memorial Family of Services comprises primary care practices and specialty care services, including high quality cardiac care, a continuum of cancer care, hospice care, and advanced services for children with special health care needs. Memorial online: YakimaMemorial.org

Media Contact:
Gale Robinette
Media Relations Manager
Virginia Mason Health System
(206) 341-1509
gale.robinette@VirginiaMason.org