Jackie Lapinski

Education

• University of Michigan, Industrial and Operations Engineering, BSE, 2000
• University of Michigan, Industrial and Operations Engineering, MSE, 2001

Career summary

Jackie leads Performance Excellence work across Trinity Health Michigan, bringing over 20 years of experience in continuous improvement within hospitals. She previously worked as a Management Engineer at the University of Chicago and University of Michigan Hospitals and later joined U-M Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospitals as a Project Manager. Jackie played a key role in opening their 1.1-million-square-foot facility in 2011. Certified in Lean Healthcare and a Six Sigma Green Belt, she has also taught Lean Healthcare courses at U-M.

Q&A

Why do you love your job in healthcare?

Working with and inspiring people to make a change in healthcare keeps me going. We need to provide everyone with better health literacy and resources to improve our system if we want to move the needle on health in a meaningful way.

What do you look for when hiring early career professionals?

It’s a balance of somebody who can adapt and work with people, and somebody who has enough technical skills. I also look for people who can motivate change using data from a human perspective. With a degree in IOE, the nice thing is that you’ll have a blend of both skills.