Karen Conway is a globally recognized healthcare strategist and speaker who connects the dots between clinical service delivery, finance, supply chain, operations, public policy, and population health. With a unique ability to unite diverse stakeholders, she helps healthcare organizations drive value, improve performance, and build sustainable, equitable, and financially viable systems.
Karen Conway is a global healthcare strategist and award-winning journalist who has dedicated her career to uniting diverse stakeholders to solve complex healthcare challenges. She founded ValueWorks, a think tank focused on redesigning healthcare systems to maximize value, with a particular emphasis on addressing chronic disease through improved health equity and environmental sustainability.
Previously, she helped scale Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX) into the world’s largest healthcare supply chain platform, driving significant savings and performance improvements for hospitals and suppliers. An expert in systems thinking and healthcare delivery science, Karen has led national and global initiatives on value-based care, supply chain optimization, and digital strategy.
A frequent speaker and published author, she has served on multiple industry boards, chaired the American Hospital Association’s supply chain association, and been inducted into the Bellwether League Hall of Fame for Supply Chain Leadership. Karen holds a master’s degree in the Science of Healthcare Delivery from Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree from The Colorado College.
Over the past year, Karen has become a student of improv comedy, recognizing how it not only helps people silence their inner critic and relax into a more creative way of thinking, it also builds active listening and relationship building skills that lay the foundation for new ways of engaging and problem solving.
Beyond the close connection Karen has with her two daughters, Erika and Meryl, and her husband Jon, Karen was blessed in 2023 with the birth of her first granddaughter, Sadie Lou. Sadie, along with her two half sisters, Payton and Stella, have only served to strengthen Karen’s commitment to creating sustainable solutions that help people manifest their greatest potential for generations to come.
“One of my proudest moments was when my father, a few years before his passing, came to hear me speak in Baltimore. The topic was continual improvement to optimize costs and quality in healthcare, by incorporating systems thinking and standardization.
My father was not only an inspiration to me; he was also responsible for bringing the quality movement to Proctor & Gamble and for transforming the relationship between the consumer packaged goods company and Walmart, through his direct work with Sam Walton and Dr. W. Edwards Deming.
My father taught me the principles behind continual quality improvement, but more importantly, the desire to leave this world a better place. To do so, I have learned to broaden my focus (and that of others) to understand why systems perform the way they do, which is a prerequisite for improvement. In fact, it was my father who inspired the use of the phrase ‘Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets’ in healthcare from sharing a similar quote by a P&G organizational expert.”
A concise guide to managing healthcare supply chains, this book covers strategies for risk, partnerships, logistics, and performance to improve clinical, financial, and operational outcomes. It highlights emerging roles of supply chains in healthcare delivery and social determinants of health, offering insights for leaders, clinicians, students, and policymakers.
This book shows how modern global leaders balance daily operations with future growth, offering traits, strategies, and real-world advice from top executives to succeed in a changing global economy.
Unlock the keys to strategies that can elevate your personal and organizational success and the overall viability of the healthcare system as a whole. Whether through keynote speaking, facilitation, research, or consulting, Karen tailors every program to meet your unique needs. Ready to turn challenges into opportunities? Let’s collaborate and create a solution that works for you.
