Rick Beaver, BSCh, MBB, CPHQ

Rick Beaver brings over 30 years of healthcare and performance improvement experience to his current role in Kaufman Hall's Clinical Solutions practice. He leads consulting engagements focused on reducing financial penalties and adverse clinical outcomes related to hospital-acquired conditions such as infections, falls, sepsis and pressure injuries. His work also includes initiatives to improve hospital public ratings, optimize surgical patient flow and care delivery and enhance sterile processing department performance.

Prior to joining Kaufman Hall, Rick served as Vice President of Quality and Operations at Heritage Valley Health System, where he successfully integrated Lean methodology and advanced analytics across a two-hospital system. Under his leadership, the organization completed more than 300 improvement projects, earning multiple clinical and operational awards. Rick is widely recognized for his expertise in healthcare analytics and has worked with numerous health systems to embed data-driven decision-making into Lean, Six Sigma and other improvement frameworks. He has served as an examiner for both the U.S. and Pennsylvania State Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence programs.

Earlier in his career, Rick earned 14 patents while at PPG Industries. He holds a degree in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and pursued graduate studies in organic chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. He is certified as a Master Black Belt and Integration Leader in Six Sigma and holds the Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) credential.