Catherine Baumgardner, PhD, MHA, FACHE is a member of the faculty for the World Campus eMHA program at The Pennsylvania State University. She is also President of Catherine Baumgardner & Associates, Inc., a consulting practice devoted to creating optimal healthcare experiences through guiding leaders and their teams to create organizations that deliver on their promise to the customer.
She is an experienced healthcare executive with more than 20 years of day-to-day operational experience and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. In addition to hospital-wide inpatient and outpatient management, Catherine has also worked with health insurance and physician practice management. She is passionate about customer service, having trained with the Disney Institute and the Ritz Carlton, and was an early adopter of customer service in the healthcare setting. Her areas of research interest include organization development, workforce engagement, change leadership, and human resources issues related to talent management, recruitment, and retention.

Catherine has a doctor of philosophy degree from The Pennsylvania State University in Workforce Education and Development, and is also a graduate of The Ohio State University, with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration. She holds memberships in the American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Society of Healthcare Human Resources Administrators, the Association for Talent Development, and the Medical Group Management Association.