UF&Shands recruits health care leader as new chief quality officer

September 19, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Randy Harmatz, formerly the vice president of the quality program at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, has been named the chief quality officer for UF&Shands, the University of Florida Academic Health Center.

As part of her role, she will oversee the Sebastian Ferrero Office of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety at UF&Shands. The quality and safety programs implemented through this new office, named in honor of 3-year-old Sebastian, will benefit all patients, not just children.

“Ms. Harmatz is a results-oriented health care leader with a proven track record for facilitating change and sustaining improvement,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System.

“The addition of Ms. Harmatz to our team is an extremely important step,” Guzick added. “Job 1 for UF&Shands is to ensure safe, high-quality care for our patients. She will galvanize our efforts to establish a culture of quality and safety that extends to every member of our academic health center community.”

Since 2004, Harmatz has been responsible for all aspects of the quality program, including clinical performance improvement, for the 947-bed UH CMC Academic Medical Center. In addition, she provided quality oversight and leadership at seven facilities in the University Hospitals system.

During her tenure, the institution’s ranking rose from 74th to ninth in the University HealthSystem Consortium, an alliance of 114 academic medical centers and 255 of their affiliated hospitals. She also has a rich history of collaboration with physicians.

“What attracted me to the field of quality improvement is it enables me to work directly with the caregiver and bring change to the bedside,” Harmatz said. “I can’t personally deliver medical care, but I can help build a culture dedicated to improvement and support our caregivers in efforts to provide a safe, high-quality patient experience.”

At UF&Shands, Harmatz will develop and implement the vision and strategy for academic and clinical programs in quality and patient safety, working collaboratively with Shands HealthCare Chief Executive Officer Timothy Goldfarb, College of Medicine Dean Dr. Michael Good, Shands at UF Chief Medical Officer Dr. Timothy Flynn, and UF Physicians Chief Executive Officer/Chief Medical Officer Dr. Marvin Dewar.

“It was extraordinary,” Harmatz said. “From the moment I met Dr. Guzick, and as I kept meeting people throughout UF&Shands, whether I was talking with a nurse manager or a dean, the commitment to safety was equally clear and focused. Patient safety is at the top of everyone’s agenda, and that is what drew me here.”

From 2001 to 2004, prior to becoming vice president for quality at UH CMC Academic Medical Center, Harmatz was director of special projects and business ventures, managing numerous endeavors focused on improving the operations of six community hospitals and their affiliates, including the development of systemwide infrastructure to establish, implement and monitor clinical guidelines. Before that she was with Continuum Health Partners, the parent corporation for the hospital system that includes Beth Israel Medical Center.

She received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Boston University and her M.B.A. in health care administration from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine/Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York.

“We are extremely proud of the commitment and great strides UF&Shands has made, under Dr. Guzick’s leadership, to ensure safe, high-quality care for all patients,” said Horst Ferrero, founder of the Sebastian Ferrero Foundation.