RWJF Executive Nurse Fellows Program

Debra R. Honey, BSN, RN, MHA, CPHQ, FACHE, CENP

Vice President Clinical Leadership Development and Clinical Operations for Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI). Catholic Health Initiatives is a national nonprofit health organization with headquarters in Denver. The faith-based system includes 79 hospitals, 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities, and two community health-services organizations in 20 states with more than 60,000 employees. In her role as VP Clinical Operations, Ms. Honey is responsible for the system-wide clinical competency program and functions as the clinical liaison and representative for service line development and support. In addition, she is responsible for new initiatives and programs focusing on clinical leadership development across the continuum of staff nurse to nurse executive. Ms. Honey served in a leadership role in the development of CHI’s system data repository and warehouse, clinical technology assessment process and the newly created core function of business intelligence which consolidates disparate data sources into a single source of system information. In 2007, Ms. Honey presented “Using a Data Warehouse to Improve Clinical Outcomes” at the Annual HIMSS meeting in New Orleans. Prior to joining Catholic Health Initiatives system office in 1998, Ms. Honey was the administrative director for quality services and medical staff affairs in one of the system’s facilities. She has extensive previous experience in human resources management and nursing education. Ms. Honey currently serves on the board of Women Business Leaders of the U. S. Health Care Industry Foundation and on the board quality committees of two large hospital systems.