About Us
IMH brings decades of expertise to designing, planning, opening, and stabilizing healthcare operations. We exist so that our clients can provide safe and exceptional patient-centric care on Day One of operations. We do so by providing an unparalleled operational planning experience for healthcare organizations transitioning to new, replacement, and campus expansion projects.
We are a team of international operational activation and process optimization consultants that brings decades of experience to healthcare projects to properly plan and execute the design, operational planning, opening, and stabilization of operations post occupancy.
Clinical Leaders
At IMH, we believe we are all caregivers dedicated to committed excellent care. We have a team of clinical leaders with decades of experience in bedside care, leading, planning, workflow redesign, and clinical IS projects across healthcare settings.
Process Optimization
IMH has an extensive team of Lean Six Sigma Black Belt practitioners who have led major facility and system-level projects to improve throughput, decrease length of stay, and achieve operational goals.
Planning Leadership
For more than two decades, IMH leadership has successfully led operations readiness and activation projects throughout North America and in the Middle East.
Your Planning Leaders
Rick Hood
Managing Partner
A Green Belt Lean Six Sigma Executive Healthcare professional with domestic and international healthcare experience leading highly engaged teams delivering exceptional patient experiences. Rick has led diverse, multi-national teams from across the globe in Abu Dhabi and geographically dispersed Support Service teams across 17 hospitals for IU Health. Rick has led the operational planning and activation of healthcare facilities ranging from large MOBs to the four million square foot Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi project. During his leadership tenure at CCAD his teams were recognized with multiple awards including the top rated department for patient satisfaction scores as measured by Press Ganey International for two consecutive years.
Rick has led the operational planning and activation of healthcare projects for almost 20 years and has developed and led high performing operational teams for Cleveland Clinic and IU Health. Rick led a multi-national team to operationally plan and active Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, a four million square foot Greenfield Hospital.
Rick is a US Army Veteran. He received a Yellow Belt in LSS from Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and a Green Belt from Purdue University. Rick has attended numerous national and international healthcare conferences, was a speaker at Healthcare Facilities Asia, Singapore, 2017, and has been published in Medical Construction & Design.
Rick holds a B.A of Political Science from Appalachian State University, is a graduate of the Army Primary Leadership & Development Course and is a fellow of the North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership.
Jonathan Chalfant
Partner and Vice President
Jonathan’s passion for healthcare is rooted in the pursuit of operational excellence and respect for people. His leadership in Lean process improvement and process engineering has had measurable impact on patient and staff experience. It’s his mission to help improve patient outcomes and experience by ensuring value-added workflows support staff’s ability to provide efficient quality care. Over the past decade, the continuous process improvement efforts led by Jonathan has realized over $75 million in savings and profitability.
Jonathan served as Assistant Director of Lean Services and Lead Advisor for Lean Healthcare at Purdue Healthcare Advisors and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. This consultancy role focused on leading healthcare organizations with operational excellence endeavors from executive level strategy development to front-line implementation and realization of business operations improvement. Jonathan worked as a senior leader at Indiana University Health, transforming operations across the state as Director of Environmental Services. He led the facilitation of a 44,000-square-foot, full-scale cardboard mock-up of a new hospital in which providers and team members ran “day in the life” scenarios and designed the space for optimal functionality and quality patient care.
Jonathan also led transformation efforts with IU Health where he was responsible for leading and providing the training, coaching, facilitation and development for hospital-based, strategic, high-impact process improvement initiatives.
Jonathan is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt (CSSMBB) and holds a Lean Gold Certification (LGC). He is also a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Jonathan earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University’s College of Technology in the School of Technology Leadership and Innovation.
Event Speaker –Indiana Lean Healthcare Summit, 2P Process Engineering, 2021
Christy Hackerd
Partner and Vice President
Christy brings more than 13 years of healthcare expertise to IMH Healthcare. She is committed to achieving a healthier future through efficient and effective operational planning, programming, and change management.
As an IMH partner, Christy has served as a project executive for Operations Readiness for Baptist Health Care (Pensacola, Florida), ensuring overall project delivery and client success and supporting operational planning, patient move planning for 150+ hospital inpatients and inpatient behavioral health patients, training content development, and day in the life facilitation. She has also provided support as a clinical planner for BayCare Health (Plant City, Florida) and as a project executive for functional programming for Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (Panama City, Florida).
Prior to her time with IMH, Christy was a senior project manager for Indiana University Health Bloomington at the IU Regional Academic Health Center. Christy was accountable for programming, operations and team member readiness, day in the life, patient move, and licensing and regulatory planning and coordination. Christy was responsible for owner-led program planning for the onsite ambulatory practices, emergency and inpatient services, clinical and diagnostic services, support and logistics, behavioral health, and the operational command center.
She coached 20+ teams on crucial change initiatives. Christy also developed a patient move plan for 150-216 patients.
Christy joined IU Health Bloomington in May 2009 and has served as a Medical-Surgical nurse, nurse educator, senior change management consultant, and process improvement consultant. As an educator, Christy led planning, coordination, curriculum, and content development for EMR and software training for nursing.
Christy is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt through Purdue Healthcare Advisors. Christy is also a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Christy earned a Master of Public Affairs degree from O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University and was inducted into the Pi Alpha Alpha International Honor Society. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. Christy holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Indiana University as well.
Chris Gargala
Executive Director
With an ICU, hospital operations and clinical IS leadership background, Chris brings critical insights into the IMH Healthcare planning process. His clinical leadership and IS expertise help him provide a patient and clinician centric focus throughout the project lifecycle. Chris is passionate about improving and optimizing clinical and operational processes through intensive workflow analysis and design.
Chris successfully led Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare’s clinical and leadership teams in developing a Functional Program for a 280,000 SF, $185M greenfield hospital in Panama City Beach, FL. Chris has also functioned as a Clinical Planner for BayCare South Florida Baptist Hospital on their 420,000 SF, $326M replacement hospital. Prior to IMH, Chris served as the Director of Clinical Informatics at Indiana University Health leading a team of over 80 analysts and informaticists implementing and optimizing EHR hardware and software across 17 hospitals and over 500 ambulatory locations. Preceding his directorship, Chris led the Clinical IS Implementation team at IU Health. Through his change management strategies and standardization practices, Chris helped IU Health implement more than 50 IS projects, one of which experienced a realized savings of $7.4M due to workflow standardization. Prior to his time at IU Health, Chris was a surgical ICU nurse, unit manager of a thoracic surgery PCU unit, and a hospital administrator with MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
Chris is a Prosci Certified Change Management Practitioner. He is also certified in critical care nursing and nursing informatics.
Chris earned his Bachelor of Nursing degree from the University of Michigan and his Master’s degree in Nursing Leadership from The George Washington University.
Sheila Kelty
Executive Director
Sheila is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt who offers 20+ years of healthcare experience. She has led facility planning, staff readiness, and transition planning for a replacement hospital, a new inpatient tower, and remodeled outpatient facilities. She is proficient in leading process improvement. Sheila is enthusiastic about helping rural critical access hospitals provide better healthcare and outcomes for their communities. She enjoys mentoring early careerists in their journey to becoming the healthcare leaders of tomorrow.
Sheila recently completed a Functional Programming engagement for a 100-bed greenfield hospital for Tallahassee Memorial Health. A former hospital Vice President, Sheila is well-versed in executive leadership. Her focus on enhancing revenue, reducing cost, and increasing patient satisfaction helped keep her critical access hospital profitable during an economic recession. She served as the Principal Advisor for Purdue Healthcare Advisors. During her tenure at PHA, she led a team of Lean professionals providing Lean Healthcare training. Sheila finds satisfaction in full-scale cardboard mock-ups, running day-in-the-life scenarios to verify the best use of space, and optimizing the workflow and functionality of the design.
Sheila is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. She is a member of the Indiana Healthcare Executives Network and serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors. Sheila earned her Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from Purdue Healthcare Advisors.
Sheila earned a Doctor of Health Administration degree from Central Michigan University’s Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions. Sheila earned both a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Bachelor of Finance degree at Ball State University’s Miller College of Business.