The JPS Health Network named Dr. Karen Duncan, a board-certified pediatrician with more than 20 years of medical and executive leadership experience, to be its new chief operating officer, the network said Thursday.
Duncan joined JPS in 2017 as executive vice president of community health services. She will begin her new job at the end of January, when Bill Whitman, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer, retires.
“With a background in pediatrics and years of executive roles, she has devoted her professional life to the improvement of public hospitals across the country, and she has done the same for us in her three years here,” Robert Earley, JPS president and CEO, said in a release. “I have great respect for her, not just because of her extensive background and accomplishments, but because of who she is. She is a trusted partner who pushes each of us to be better every day.”
Duncan has held executive leadership positions at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital and Chicago’s Cook County Health and Hospitals System. She came to JPS from Health Management Associates, a healthcare consulting firm where she consulted for large publicly funded hospitals systems, government entities and managed care plans.
Duncan received her M.D. from the Emory University School of Medicine. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in biochemistry at Smith College, and completed the Executive MBA Program at Georgia State University.