Oct. 5, 2015: Judy Reitz to Retire as The Johns Hopkins Hospital's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Dear Colleagues,

I write to deliver the bittersweet news that after 34 years in nursing and hospital administration leadership roles at Johns Hopkins, Judy A. Reitz, Sc.D., is retiring from her positions as executive vice president and chief operating officer for The Johns Hopkins Hospital and vice president of quality improvement for Johns Hopkins Medicine, effective June 30, 2016. Dr. Reitz has been a tireless leader and a champion for our patient- and family-centered care initiatives and priority. She is widely regarded for her expertise in patient care, operations and multitasking.  

In 1981, Dr. Reitz came to Johns Hopkins, where she applied for a position as nurse manager but was hired as director of nursing practice for The Johns Hopkins Hospital because of her quickly recognized skills as a leader and change agent. After just three years in that role, she was promoted to a number of vice president positions at Francis Scott Key Medical Center—now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center—and the scope of her responsibilities was expanded to include non-nursing departments. As part of the executive management team, she helped turn that facility's $7 million loss at the time of acquisition into a positive bottom line. 

An action-oriented problem solver who brings intensity and passion to her work, Dr. Reitz was named executive vice president and chief operating officer for Johns Hopkins Bayview in 1993 and within two years started serving as vice president for operations integration for the Johns Hopkins Health System. In 1996, she returned to The Johns Hopkins Hospital to initially serve as senior vice president of operations while continuing to serve as executive vice president and COO for Johns Hopkins Bayview, overseeing two extremely important functions simultaneously.

In 1999, she relinquished her role at Johns Hopkins Bayview and joined The Johns Hopkins Hospital full time when she was promoted to executive vice president and COO there. She was the first, and remains the only, woman in our history to be named to that position.  

As a creative, results-oriented team builder, Dr. Reitz spearheaded numerous initiatives in safety, service and quality improvement. In recent years, she was instrumental in the 2012 opening of the Sheikh Zayed Tower and The Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center, and has been a strong advocate for using new technology in support of patient care. She is not only a dynamic leader, but also a strategist known for her abilities to establish lasting relationships and re-engineer systems and processes for better efficiencies and accountability. Most recently, she has been involved in providing executive oversight for the capacity optimization initiative at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in collaboration with representatives from the General Electric Company.

Dr. Reitz's life work has always been grounded in improving patient care. The daughter of a U.S. Army Medical Service Corps officer, she became a commissioned officer in the Army Nurse Corps after earning her bachelor's degree in nursing. She started as an obstetrical nurse at Kimbrough Army Hospital at Fort Meade in Maryland, and then became a medical nurse in the biocontainment unit at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. After her discharge from the Army, she became director of nursing for a 250-bed long-term care facility in Baltimore County.

Dr. Reitz earned her doctorate in health policy/health finance and management at The Johns Hopkins University and her master's degree at the University of Maryland. She has led research and authored many publications related to patient care. Additionally, she has served on the boards of trustees of professional and community organizations, including Johns Hopkins Bayview, Johns Hopkins Home Care Group, the Maryland Hospital Association and American Heart Association. She has been recognized as one of the top 50 women in Baltimore business and one of the top 100 women in Maryland, and she was honored with the Girl Scouts' Distinguished Women's Award.

Throughout her career, she has inspired several administrators as a teacher and role model, and she has mentored many young administrative fellows and aspiring executives who have gone on to careers of prominence.

Although I know that Dr. Reitz looks forward to spending more time with her family, I am happy that she will continue to support patient care services through the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality on a part-time basis.

Please join me in recognizing Dr. Reitz's countless contributions to Johns Hopkins.

Ronald R. Peterson
President
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System
EVP, Johns Hopkins Medicine