Cambridge Health Alliance Names New Chief Nursing Officer
A warm welcome to Lanie Ward, RN, MBA
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), a community health system serving Cambridge, Somerville and Boston’s metro-north communities, has named Lanie Ward, MBA, BSN, RN, as its new chief nursing officer. Ward has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare administration and has served in senior nursing roles in organizations across the country. She has served as CHA’s interim chief nursing officer since June 2020.
Ward will oversee nursing at CHA's two hospital campuses – Cambridge and Everett – and its network of primary care and specialty care centers. ”Lanie has done a fantastic job in her time at CHA already,” said CHA CEO Assaad Sayah, MD. “Arriving in the aftermath of the COVID-19 surge, she provided exceptional leadership, stability and support for our staff, nurses and providers as we reopened sites across our system.” She also played a critical role in the preparations for CHA’s recent Joint Commission accreditation survey, sharing insights, best practices and lessons from her experiences at other institutions.
Prior to joining CHA, Ward was the senior vice president of patient care services/CNO at Summa Health System in Ohio. Summa serves more than one million patients in Ohio through comprehensive acute, critical, emergency, outpatient and long-term/home-care settings and has more than 1,300 licensed beds. At Summa, she brought nursing together system-wide to standardize care, practice and shared governance. Additionally, under her leadership, the system achieved significant improvements in safety, including reduced serious safety events.
Before her time at Summa, Ward was the chief nursing officer at Broward General Medical Center & Chris Evert Children’s Hospital in Florida. Broward is a nonprofit community health system that encompasses more than 30 healthcare facilities with four hospitals.
She received her master’s degree in business administration from Florida Atlantic University and her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Kentucky.