SEATTLE – (Jan. 27, 2017) – Kirsten Mecklenburg Turner has been named executive director of the Virginia Mason Institute.

Turner, who has been with institute since 2014 as director of client services and an executive sensei, succeeds Diane Miller, who guided the institute as executive director since its founding in 2008.

The institute, which is part of Virginia Mason Health System, provides education, coaching and facilitation to help health care organizations improve patient safety, quality and efficiency.

Turner has extensive experience in working with organizations to develop and implement key strategies and achieve executive and clinician alignment. As director of client services at the institute, she had a key role in growing the business. As an executive sensei, she coached leadership teams through the culture change of transformation.

Before joining the Virginia Mason Institute, she served as a leader at Deloitte Consulting, guiding health systems and their executives through large-scale transformation. As a senior manager at Deloitte, she led clinician adoption of standardized care models, implementation of clinical information systems, revenue cycle and workflow-based performance improvement initiatives, and executive talent management programs. Turner holds a master’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.

The institute has partnered with dozens of health care organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and Denmark to educate, train and inspire health care leaders to build the organizational capability they need to create and sustain a culture of continuous improvement. Additionally, thousands of individuals travel to the institute’s facility in Seattle for education, training and Virginia Mason tours each year.

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 a 336-bed Virginia Mason Hospital; a primary and specialty care group practice of more than 470 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 United States 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 Health System also includes Virginia Mason Memorial, a 226-bed hospital serving the Yakima Valley in central Washington since 1950. Memorial online: YakimaMemorial.org

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