The Department of Health Policy and Management is pleased to announce that April Taylor, MHA, MS, FACHE will join the department as its Executive-in-Residence (EIR) for the 2025-26 academic year. The EIR program enhances students' contact with and knowledge about the world of practice. The EIR meets with students collectively and individually throughout the academic year regarding career development, professionalism and leadership.
Taylor, a 2004 graduate of the master of health administration program, serves as vice president and chief operating officer of The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
During her time at Pitt, Taylor interned at Mercy Hospital, then part of the Catholic Health Easy system. There, she says she was introduced to patient quality and safety programs that would influence her future career. After graduating, Taylor accepted her first full-time position at Catholic Health East, working for another MHA program alumnus.
Taylor says one benefit of her time at Pitt was the opportunities the program offers students.
"This program exposes you to so many different environments during your time here that I knew I missed the hospital environment and wanted to get back there."
Taylor joined Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), working in quality and safety, her passions, and working her way to the hospital's senior director of process improvement and project management, something for which she credits her MHA work for preparing her.
"Pitt gave me the experience in hospital operations, so I was able to take what I know and combine it with what I love to succeed," she said.
After 15 years at CHOP, Taylor joined Johns Hopkins Hospital as vice president for quality and safety. She said the system's mission-based operations appealed to her.
"Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is very mission-based, and while it is much bigger, so is Johns Hopkins," said Taylor, adding that the move to a bigger system challenged her to get out of her comfort zone, learn about a new system and form new relationships.
Now a top executive at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Taylor says the different environments she's worked in, systems with many hospitals, and one hospital with a wide range of services, have helped her understand many aspects of health and bring that to her decision-making process.
Returning to one of her alma maters (Taylor also holds a master's degree in statistics from West Chester University of Pennsylvania), she hopes to mentor students like those she had.
"I've had a lot of faculty, staff and mentors throughout my career who have helped me grow," said Taylor. "Pitt is so close to me because of my mentor, and it's a great place to connect and reconnect with people."
-Mike Friend