Beginning her career in hospitality, Andrea developed an early understanding of service and the importance of creating seamless experiences through the coordination of multiple departments, people and operational functions. She later entered healthcare through the ancillary business side, gaining experience across biologics, durable medical equipment, laboratory, pharmacy, reimbursement and billing, healthcare technology and other services supporting healthcare operations.
That unconventional path ultimately became one of the greatest strengths of her career.
As Andrea’s work evolved into healthcare facilities, development, real estate, design and construction, she brought with her an understanding not only of how healthcare environments are planned and built, but also of the businesses, clinical operations, workflows and people that must function within them.
She has led and supported healthcare capital projects ranging from ambulatory facilities to major hospital expansions and has worked across the project lifecycle from planning and design through construction, transition, activation, go-live and post-occupancy operations.
Most recently, Andrea developed and built a healthcare Transition & Activation Planning service offering within a global architecture and design firm, including its business strategy, service framework and integrated approach to operational readiness.
Throughout her career, Andrea has frequently been brought into complex organizations, portfolios and projects to identify operational gaps, connect stakeholders, develop solutions and create structure where processes or responsibilities have become fragmented.
Her work is centered around connecting traditionally siloed disciplines—including operations, facilities, design, construction, technology, equipment, organizational readiness and activation—while also translating strategy into practical execution so healthcare environments are not simply completed but prepared to perform.
Her philosophy is rooted in something she first learned in hospitality and has carried throughout her career:
People experience systems as a whole, even when organizations manage them in pieces.
For Andrea, successful healthcare projects and organizations happen when we understand those pieces, connect them intentionally, execute on the vision and never lose sight of the people we are ultimately there to serve.
Interestingly, my professional foundation actually started in hospitality, long before I ever imagined where my career would ultimately take me. Working in the hotel business taught me about service, but it also taught me something that has shaped the way I approach almost everything today: the person you are serving doesn’t experience your organization in departments. They experience the result of how well those departments work together.
A hotel guest doesn’t think about whether housekeeping, engineering, food and beverage, the front desk or maintenance did their individual jobs correctly. They experience one hotel. One change or decision in one department can create a ripple effect across five others, and I learned very early how important it was to understand those connections and ultimately ‘where the dominos fall’.
I joke all the time that my brain works like either a pinball machine or a very large Excel workbook with about 100 tabs open. I can be talking through one issue, jump immediately to something happening somewhere else, and then come right back without losing the thread. There is actually a method behind it. My brain is constantly connecting information—what changed, who it affects, what happens downstream, and what else needs to move because of it.
I think hospitality is where that part of my brain really developed. You learn quickly how to juggle multiple priorities while understanding that none of them operate independently. I didn’t have language for it at the time, but looking back, I think that was really the beginning of my integrated approach.
My introduction into healthcare wasn’t through a traditional clinical path. I entered through the ancillary and business side, working across areas including biologics, durable medical equipment, laboratory, pharmacy, reimbursement and billing, healthcare technology and hardware. That required me to learn how healthcare organizations actually function—not just clinically, but operationally and financially.
I learned how different departments worked, how services were delivered, how reimbursement affected operations, how patients moved through the healthcare system, and how the people providing care interacted with the technology, equipment, processes and physical environments around them every day.
When my career later evolved into healthcare facilities, real estate, development, design and construction, I wasn’t looking at healthcare buildings simply as construction projects. I understood the businesses, workflows, clinical operations and people that eventually had to function inside those spaces.
Looking back, the common thread throughout my career has really been service and integration—understanding all of the pieces, seeing where they intersect, and helping connect them around the people we’re ultimately there to serve.
What surprised me most was how many incredibly talented people could be working toward the same outcome and still be operating within completely separate worlds.
Coming from hospitality, where the customer experience depends so heavily on departments working together, I naturally found myself looking for the connections. But healthcare is extraordinarily complex. Clinical operations, finance, facilities, IT, supply chain, pharmacy, medical equipment, administration and countless other groups each have their own responsibilities, priorities and even their own language.
As my career evolved into healthcare real estate, facilities, design and construction, I saw another layer of that same challenge. Architects, contractors, project managers, clinicians, facilities teams, technology teams, equipment planners and operational leaders were all making decisions that ultimately affected one another, but they weren’t always making those decisions together.
That’s where I became a little obsessed with the spaces between the disciplines.
I’ve also spent a significant part of my career being brought into organizations, portfolios and projects when something wasn’t quite working and someone needed to figure out why. I jokingly call that the “Swiss cheese effect.” I walk in looking for the holes. Where is the disconnect? What information isn’t getting across? Which process isn’t working? Who isn’t talking to whom? What requirement was missed? And what is the downstream impact of that gap?
My goal is always to identify the holes, understand why they exist and start plugging them until, hopefully, we’ve turned the Swiss cheese into provolone. 🙂
It sounds playful, but it really does describe how I approach problem-solving. I rarely assume the problem belongs to one person or one department. I look across the entire system to understand where the breakdown occurred, what else it is affecting and what needs to happen to solve it sustainably.
Over time, I learned where the dominoes fall. I could see how a decision made during design could eventually affect a clinical workflow, how a construction milestone could impact training or operational readiness, or how something that appeared to belong to one department could create downstream consequences for five others.
I’ve never been particularly good at staying in one lane, and professionally that turned out to be a very good thing.
That perspective has become foundational to the way I work today. I don’t see design, construction, operations, technology, people and activation as separate conversations. I see them as parts of one interconnected healthcare system.
Service
Hospitality gave me my first professional foundation, and service has never really left the way I lead. I still find myself asking the same basic questions: Who are we serving? What do they need? And are the decisions we’re making actually making their experience better?
In healthcare, that extends beyond the patient. We are also serving caregivers, physicians, staff, families and the teams responsible for operating these environments every day. The work can become incredibly complicated, but the reason behind it shouldn’t.
I try to stay connected to the people who will ultimately experience the result of whatever we are creating.
Integration
I probably use the word “integration” more than most people, but it is because I genuinely believe some of the biggest challenges in healthcare live between departments rather than within them.
I actively try to understand the entire ecosystem around whatever problem I’m solving—the people, processes, technology, physical environment, operational requirements, schedules and stakeholders responsible for each piece.
No single discipline can successfully deliver a healthcare environment by itself.
The opportunity is in connecting those disciplines early enough that they aren’t solving problems independently and discovering the consequences later. Whether I’m working on a facility, an operational challenge, a business strategy or an activation effort, I’m always looking for the connections.
It is probably the most consistent thread throughout my career.
Execution
I’m a big believer that a great idea is only as valuable as our ability to actually execute it.
As leaders, we can identify a problem, develop an incredible strategy or spend hours talking about what could be done differently—but eventually someone has to turn that thinking into action. That has always been a big part of how I operate.
Throughout my career, I’ve often found myself taking something that started as an idea, a gap or a business need and figuring out how to actually build it. That might mean creating the process, developing the tools, establishing the structure, aligning the right people, defining responsibilities and then staying close enough to the work to make sure it can actually be implemented.
I’ve done that in different forms throughout my career—from building and growing healthcare ancillary businesses to creating operational solutions within complex projects and, most recently, developing an entirely new healthcare service line and the framework required to take it to market and deliver it.
For me, execution is where strategy becomes real.
I also think strong execution requires understanding the interdependencies around the work. You can’t simply create a plan in isolation and hand it to someone else. You have to understand who will execute it, what they need, what other processes it touches, where the potential barriers are and how you will know whether it is actually working.
Ideas create possibility. Execution creates change.
One of the most valuable things I believe I can bring to an organization is the ability to help move something from, “We should do this,” to “Here’s how we’re going to make it happen.”
Relationships
Healthcare is an incredibly relationship-driven industry, and some of the most meaningful opportunities in my career have come from relationships that were built years earlier.
I genuinely love connecting people. I also believe the best relationships are built on trust, generosity and authenticity rather than transactional networking.
You never really know when someone you met five or ten years ago will become a collaborator, mentor, client, advocate or friend. I try to invest in relationships without always needing to know where they are going.
Courage
I’m learning that there are seasons in your career when growth requires you to bet on yourself—and sometimes that means being willing to raise your hand when everyone else is comfortable keeping theirs down.
I’ve never been particularly interested in thinking or leading exactly like everyone else simply because that is the way something has always been done. Whether I’m sitting in a project meeting, a leadership conversation or even a networking event, I’m willing to ask the harder question, challenge an assumption or offer a different perspective when I believe it can move the conversation forward.
That doesn’t mean challenging something simply for the sake of challenging it. For me, courage also requires curiosity, respect and understanding why you’re speaking up in the first place. I never want to become so experienced that I stop asking questions.
I believe those conversations are often where positive change begins. When we are willing to respectfully challenge what isn’t working, look at a problem differently or consider a better way forward, we create an opportunity for growth—not only for the organization, but also for the leaders guiding it and the teams responsible for bringing that change to life.
I think authenticity is part of that too. The longer I’ve been in my career, the more comfortable I’ve become trusting my own perspective instead of trying to fit someone else’s definition of what an executive or leader is supposed to look or sound like.
Experience gives you knowledge, but courage is often what determines whether you actually use it. And when that courage is paired with the right intention, it can create meaningful change.
I want to continue protecting that willingness to push the boundaries, ask the uncomfortable question and advocate for a better way—even when it would be much easier to simply go along with the room.
Don’t be afraid to build a career that doesn’t fit neatly into one box.
For a long time, I think many of us were taught that career success meant choosing a lane, becoming an expert in it and continuing straight up that ladder. My experience has been almost the opposite.
Some of the greatest value I bring today comes from having worked across different parts of healthcare and being willing to understand how each one connects to the next.
Learn your job, absolutely—but also learn what happens upstream and downstream from you. Understand how your decisions affect someone else’s work. Ask questions outside your immediate area of responsibility. Sit with the people doing the work and understand what their day actually looks like. Learn enough about the other disciplines around you that you can understand their language and appreciate what matters to them.
Healthcare is a system, and the more of that system you understand, the more valuable your perspective becomes.
I would also tell women not to underestimate the value of the perspective they have earned simply because their career path doesn’t look like someone else’s.
For years, the things that made my résumé a little difficult to put into one box were the same things I sometimes wondered if I needed to explain.
Eventually, I realized they were exactly what differentiated me.
Sometimes the career path that looks the least linear on paper is the one that gives you the broadest perspective when all of those experiences finally come together.
LinkedIn is probably the best place to connect with me.
I love meeting people working across healthcare operations, facilities, real estate, design, construction, technology, activation and all of the spaces in between.
I’m especially interested in conversations that challenge the traditional silos within our industry and explore how we can create better continuity between the environments we’re building and the people who ultimately have to operate within them.
I also genuinely enjoy connecting people with one another, exchanging ideas and learning from people who see the industry through a different lens than I do.
And if you reach out after reading this feature, please tell me you found me through the Women in Healthcare series. I would genuinely love to connect.