Karen (Kathy) Reno, PhD, MBA, RN
Consultant, Joint Commission International
Dr. Reno has more than 35 years of experience in health care, most of which were spent in administrative roles as chief nursing officer for organizations and chief operating officer for clinical services. She retired from her role as CNO and COO for Northwest Community Healthcare in Arlington Heights, Illinois in 2006 to complete her PhD. She received her PhD in Organization Development with her research focus on virtual communities of practice. She now serves as a consultant for Joint Commission Resources and Joint Commission International. Dr. Reno has provided domestic and international consulting for Patient Safety.
She also holds a half-time appointment as an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago's (UIC) College of Nursing. In addition, she is the College's Coordinator for the Doctor in Nursing Practice Executive Leadership Concentration, which she developed. The program is one of few nationally developed for nursing executives. The first cohort will be accepted in fall 2008. She also serves as a consultant for the college's Institute for Healthcare Innovation, which is the entrepreneurial arm for the College of Nursing in integrating education, research and practice to advance nursing leadership.
Dr. Reno has lectured on numerous topics including safe facility design, board relations, hospital finances, safety and technology.
Dr. Reno has been active in many state and national boards and advisory groups. In 2001-2002 she served on The Joint Commission's Standards Review Task Force that reviewed and revised the hospital standards for the Shared Visions-New Pathways initiative. She served on the board of the National Alliance for Healthcare Informatics (NAHIT) whose mission is to leverage health care stakeholders in order to standardize health care IT systems. In the same pursuit, she also served on the American Hospital Association (AHA) and American Organization of Nurse Executive's (AONE) Technology Task Forces. She served two terms on the national board for AONE and the AHA Regional Policy Board for the Midwest region. Other board and advisory group activities include nursing advisory committees for McKesson, Zynx (an evidence-based web subscription service owned by Hearst Publications), and Nursing Spectrum, a nursing magazine.
Her educational background includes a diploma in nursing from St. Joseph's Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; a bachelor's of science in nursing and management from Alverno College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; master's in business administration in marketing from DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois; and a PhD in Organization Development from Benedictine University, Lisle, Illinois.
Her professional affiliations include Sigma Theta Tau, American Organization of Nurse Executives, Illinois Organization of Nurse Executives, and the Academy of Management.