Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative
Karyn DiGiorgio, RN MS has extensive work experience in healthcare, particularly in collaboration, leadership, and improving patient outcomes. Karyn is currently the Chief Collaboration Officer at Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative since 2018. Previously, from 2013 to 2018, they served as the Executive Director and Associate and Interim Director at UC Center for Health Quality and Innovation, University of California Office of the President.
Before that, Karyn worked as a Program Officer at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation-Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative (BIMNI) from 2009 to 2013. In this role, they developed and managed a $30M portfolio of grants aimed at improving inpatient care and transitional care planning.
Karyn also has experience as an Emergency Department Discharge Coordinator at UCSF Medical Center from 2006 to 2009. Their responsibilities included managing patients' healthcare requirements, coordinating services and tests, and facilitating communication with patients and caregivers to reduce unnecessary ED use and avoidable admissions.
Additionally, Karyn worked as an Intern in the Digital Health Division at Intel Corporation in 2008, focusing on healthcare information technology products. Karyn also pursued a graduate degree at University California San Francisco School of Nursing from 2006 to 2008.
Their career in healthcare began as an RN in the Emergency Department at UCSF from 2002 to 2006. In this role, they provided high-quality patient care, including patient teaching and coordination with other hospital departments.
Overall, Karyn DiGiorgio, RN MS has a diverse background in healthcare, with a focus on collaboration, leadership, and improving patient outcomes.
Karyn DiGiorgio, RN MS, obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from Georgetown University. Karyn then pursued a Master of Science (MS) degree in Interior Design from Drexel University from 1985 to 1988. Later, they were enrolled at the University of California, San Francisco from 2006 to 2008, where they earned a Master of Science (MS) degree in Health Policy/Nursing.
Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative
A 501C(3) charitable organization, Quantum Leap was established in 2005 as a collaboration between medical researchers at University of California, San Francisco and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Our mission is to integrate high-impact research with clinical processes and systems technology, resulting in improved data management and information systems, greater access to clinical trial matching and sponsorship, and greater benefit to providers, patients and researchers. Our goal is to improve and save lives. The founders of Quantum Leap recognize that good ideas and research projects in a University setting were often “orphaned” at the end of a research project. These efforts were frequently left with no funds or organizational structure to adequately engage clinical providers and ultimately benefit patient care. In addition, the intellectual property often created as part of these research endeavors remain untapped and undeveloped. Modeled after Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture with an added social value objective, our social-entrepreneurial model embodies: + Identifying clinical and research efforts with a potential for high impact + Providing financial and managerial assistance + Forming organizations and management teams to grow proven ideas into products + Securing funding in stages as efforts mature + Creating strategic partnerships committed to developing high-value healthcare services and products We support the development and implementation of innovative ways to deliver better, less costly healthcare. We are committed to establishing unique collaborations across the medical, technology and bioscience industries: all necessary components to accelerate healthcare research into the marketplace. Our efforts focus on quality-of-care and quality-of-life issues, and to create initiatives that foster excellent clinical practices using quality improvement disciplines with a strong patient-centric focus.