Penn Nursing

Leadership: Judy Rich, MSN, RN

President and CEO, Tucson Medical Center

While Judy Rich, a Penn Nursing alumna, holds one of the most powerful positions in health care, she knows what it’s like to work nights and weekends in clinical practice. She spent eight years as a nurse in intensive care units in Philadelphia and New York. Today, she runs a 607- bed nonprofit hospital, along with TMC Healthcare, a system covering southern Arizona.

Most recently, she has joined a host of health care luminaries on the board of United States of Care, a nonpartisan organization seeking changes in health policy at the state and federal levels. Other board members include entrepreneur Mark Cuban, actors Bradley Whitford and Andy Richter, surgeon/ writer Atul Gawande, as well as former senators and governors from both major political parties. Their plan is to test ideas in individual states for potential expansion, much the way the Massachusetts health care experiment under Governor Mitt Romney inspired the Affordable Care Act.

Rich’s work as a national leader in health care got its start in the most personal of ways, when her father died of Hodgkin’s disease. She wore her cap and gown from high school graduation to the hospital so her father could see her; he died three days later. “Losing my father made me really positive I wanted to become a caregiver,” she told the Arizona Daily Star.

Following her work as a staff nurse, Rich held management positions at St. Mary’s Hospital in Palm Beach, Florida, for 15 years. She served as the COO and CNO at Wellmont Health System in Kingsport, Tennessee, before moving to Arizona to become COO of the Tucson Medical Center in 2003. Leaving in the midst of financial struggles at the Center, she worked as a consultant for large academic medical centers.

She returned to TMC in June 2007, in the midst of the Great Recession, when the hospital was almost $11 million in the red. Under Rich’s leadership, the system underwent a $300 million transformation of its facility and infrastructure, launched two innovative accountable care organizations, and implemented lean management principles throughout the organization.

This combination of nursing expertise and proven leadership make her an ideal problem-solver in health care.

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