Melinda has more than 25 years of experience in clinical research operations and management, business process development and improvement, and strategic planning for universities, health systems and hospitals. She specializes in operational oversight, infrastructure planning, and business process redesign and planning for clinical trial management system (CTMS) implementations.
About Melinda
Melinda has more than 25 years of experience in healthcare and clinical research. She specializes in operations management, business development, physician services, corporate health program development and quality process design. She has specific expertise in marketing for healthcare and has specialized training in facilitation and process improvement tools.
Throughout her career, Melinda has:
- Served in an interim leadership role at a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center to help develop a new organizational structure, support daily operations, lead the redesign of business processes and provide subject matter expertise.
- Provided an assessment and recommendation for the development of a shared research institute across a major university and large Midwest hospital system.
- Conducted multiple strategic planning projects with senior leadership using interactive methods and tools to develop and transform research enterprises across large-scale health systems.
- Designed and implemented research billing processes to better segregate research-related charges for a large academic cancer center, resulting in decreasing the bill hold by more than $10 million.
- Reengineered business processes across the research life cycle at one of the nation’s leading cancer centers, resulting in increased compliance and efficiency for administrative and faculty end users.
Prior to joining Huron, Melinda served as the director of the Office for Clinical and Translational Research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and UC Health. In these roles she developed and implemented a centralized clinical trials office (CTO), led the initiative with university and hospital administration to expand the CTO capabilities across the academic health center, and served as the chair for the Epic research task force responsible for implementing the Epic system in the clinical research environment.
Melinda also spent 16 years in varying clinical operations and nursing management roles, specializing in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery.
Melinda has spoken at numerous conferences, including the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA), the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP), and the Society of Research Administrators International (SRAI).
Melinda holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati, a Bachelor of Arts in communication from Xavier University and a diploma in nursing from the Deaconess Hospital School of Nursing.