The Healthcare Hub

Karen Conway

Karen Conway works to advance the role of the supply chain as a critical enabler of a value-based healthcare system. As Vice President, Healthcare Value for GHX, Conway explores how improved data quality and visibility can optimize the identification and delivery of the products and services that provide the most value to patients. She applies her extensive knowledge of supply chain operations and systems thinking to align processes, data and incentives across the healthcare ecosystem. Conway is a recognized expert on unique device identification and the corresponding systems and process changes required to achieve benefits beyond regulatory compliance. Inspired by her graduate work in the Science of Healthcare Delivery, Conway researches and advocates for the role of supply chain to support population health and programs to address the social, economic and environmental determinants of health. 

Conway is past chair of the Association for Healthcare Resource and Materials Management (AHRMM), and serves on the boards of the Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI) and the Bellwether League, the GS1 Global Healthcare Leadership Team, the expert advisory council for the Supply Chain Advancement Network in Health, and the healthcare advisory board for CAPS Research.

An internationally published author and speaker, Conway co-authored a book on global leadership, Leading from the Edge, with the former chief talent officer of Cisco. Conway writes a monthly column on “Standard Practices” in healthcare in Healthcare Purchasing News and was a contributing author to eBusiness in Healthcare, published by Springer in 2008.    

Prior to joining GHX, Conway served as principal of Conway Associates, a strategic communications firm built on the principles of continuous quality improvement and based on her business partner’s firsthand experience working with Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Procter & Gamble and Walmart. Conway began her career in healthcare working with St. Francis Hospital in Colorado Springs, during which she helped facilitate the merger between the two competing local Catholic healthcare systems, both of which are now part of Centura Health. 

Conway recently completed a master’s degree in the Science of Healthcare Delivery from Arizona State University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from The Colorado College. She is a Certified Materials and Resource Professional and a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.