Kate Jones is the senior vice president and chief strategy officer for Rush University System for Health. She joined Rush as the vice president of strategic planning in February 2020 and immediately distinguished herself as a results-oriented leader with expertise in operational efficiencies, financial performance and strategic growth.
Over the last three-plus years, Jones has aligned and deployed the annual Rush strategic plan in coordination with the long-range financial goals across the system. She has been responsible for consumer, payer and competitor intelligence to support data-driven decision-making. She has partnered with internal and external leaders to identify opportunities to grow the network across all care sites and expand the ambulatory footprint in key geographies.
Jones brings a strong record of success as a leader from her previous roles at Navigant Consulting, University of Chicago Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.
Prior to joining Rush, Jones was a director in the performance excellence business unit within the health care practice at Navigant in Chicago. She and the teams she led partnered with health systems and hospitals to identify opportunities and implement strategies to improve performance. In one notable example, Jones led a team that identified more than $75 million in savings for a Southwest health system.
Prior to Navigant, Jones served in a range of leadership roles at University of Chicago Medicine, which has given her a thorough knowledge of the Chicagoland market. As executive director of the Women and Children’s service line, she established a referral relationship with a community hospital and affiliations with multiple physician practices. Previously, she was executive director of Women’s Care Services, helping lead the opening of UChicago’s $15 million family birth center and growing delivery volume by ~18% year over year.
For nearly two years, Jones was UChicago’s interim vice president of Ambulatory Care Services. In this role, she restructured ambulatory operations to align financially and operationally with the biological science division, facilitated the growth of annual visits by 3 to 5% and improved the patient and employee experience year over year.
Jones also held senior practice administrator roles in cancer and pediatrics at UChicago. Previously, she served in clinic manager positions and as an administrative fellow at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, an affiliate of Washington University School of Medicine and the largest hospital in Missouri.
Jones earned her Masters in Health Services Administration from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She has a bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas.