Kathleen J. Goonan, MD
Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

BA, University of California at Santa Cruz, 1975
MD, University of California at Davis, 1982

Dr. Goonan is Executive Director of MIHP’s Center for Performance Excellence, our consulting resource for health care leaders (www.mghcpe.org). An internist trained at the Massachusetts General Hospital, she has more than two decades’ experience leading health care quality assessment and improvement initiatives. Prior to joining the MIHP in 2002, she held a number of senior executive positions, including Senior Vice President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Senior Vice President, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Dr. Goonan has served as a judge for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Joint Commission’s Codman Award, and for the American Hospital Association’s McKesson Quest for Quality Award.

Dr. Goonan’s interests include health care executive development, performance improvement, strategies for excellence, organizational change, and cultural transformation in health care. In addition to teaching extensively about achieving organizational performance excellence, she has consulted with leading health care delivery organizations and health care technology and supply chain companies nationwide. Dr. Goonan co-authored Journey to Excellence: How the Baldrige Health Care Leaders Succeed, authored The Juran Prescription: Clinical Quality Management and has written numerous articles and book chapters on performance improvement in health care. Dr. Goonan was faculty for the Harvard School of Public Health Leadership Development Program for Physicians from Academic Health Centers (1995-2007) and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (1999-2004).