Julia S. Swanson

Julia Swanson is the Senior Vice President Planning and Transformation at Henry Ford Health. In this role she reports to the President and Chief Executive Officer and provides overall senior leadership and direction for planning, transformation initiatives, and alignment of strategic and operational plans within the health system resulting in the long-term growth and viability of the organization. She advises on and leads the development of plans while coordinating organizational efforts to ensure efforts are aligned and integrated. Prior to this, Julia held the role of Vice President for System Clinical Operations, in support to the System COO, President Healthcare Operations and the Chief Clinical Officer, where she had overall organizational responsibility for driving operational plan development; performance goal development, establishing and monitoring initiatives; and leadership systems. She simultaneously leads multiple cross functional complex System wide initiatives.

Julia has 28 years of experience in improving integrated health care operations with expertise in strategy development, deployment, measurement, organizational performance review, disciplined execution and identifying operational interdependencies to bridge silos and levels in organizations to increase efficiency and effectiveness and drive results.

Julia has held various leadership roles within the organization including System Vice President, Enterprise Transformation; the System Vice President, Performance Analytics and Improvement; and Administrator for Innovation and Quality at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital. Throughout her career at Henry Ford Health, she has led teams across the organization that were responsible for effective organizational performance measurement, review, and project execution through development and deployment of strategy deployment, transformation, and performance improvement methodologies including the creation of an enterprise-wide project management hub.

During her career at Henry Ford Health, Julia served as a Senior Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and on the Easter Seals of Michigan Board of Directors. She currently serves on the Oakland University Pawley Lean Institute Advisory Council. She participates in activities and speaking engagements with multiple disability-based organizations and is currently the Executive Sponsor for the Henry Ford Health, ICare4U, Employee Resource Group.

Julia received her bachelor’s in Industrial and Operations Engineering and Master’s in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan.