Catalysis Academy

Kim Barnas currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Catalysis, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Prior to her role at Catalysis, Kim served as a senior vice president for ThedaCare, and president of Appleton Medical Center and Theda Clark Medical Center. While in that role she enjoyed the opportunity to learn about LEAN and implement this work in hospital operations. The ThedaCare Improvement System (LEAN) path started in 2003, with value stream mapping followed by improvement events, and projects. She was involved in leading two of the initial value streams for OB and cancer services. As the journey continued, a new challenge emerged—the need for a systematic method to sustain improvement, clarify daily continuous improvement opportunities and deliver on strategic deployment. To meet this need, Kim and her team led the development of a management system. This lean management system is designed to deliver improved performance through a predictable process that develops leaders, identifies defects, solves problems and develops people. In 2014, Kim authored a book titled Beyond Heroes, A Lean Management System for Healthcare, based on this journey. Today, Kim is actively teaching and supporting healthcare executive teams around the world. Her current focus expands the management system to the executive leadership team, with a principle based approach to leadership. Kim has a Master of Science degree in Health Care Administration.