JHF Program Specialist Pauline Taylor Announces Retirement

Pauline poses with a wild kangaroo inhabiting a campground during a past trip to Australia.

During her seven years at JHF, Pauline Taylor, CQIA has supported the Patient Centered Medical Home initiative, Centers of Excellence project, served as a quality improvement coach in the Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PA PQC), and contributed to the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative's flagship Lean process improvement methodology, Perfecting Patient Care^SM.

"I feel like joining the Foundation was a culmination of all of the things I've known and loved all of my life with 35 years in health care," Taylor said, adding that quality improvement runs in her family with her father working as a quality inspector and her son working as a quality engineer.

Before joining JHF, she was a practice director for more than two decades at Genesis Medical Associates, where she supervised a team of providers, implemented new quality improvement and technology initiatives to expand the scope of practice, and helped them achieve Patient Centered Medical Home status.

In her time at the Foundation, Taylor said her work with PA PQC has been the most meaningful because she feels that it's the area she has made the most impact by meeting regularly with staff doing the work at hospitals and being able to influence healthcare delivery and outcomes by proposing and helping implement quality improvement tools. However, she said that one of the first projects she was given at JHF – the Virtual Senior Academy – also holds special meaning for her because it was one of her first projects when joining JHF and it gave her the chance to be recognized as representing JHF for the first time and to work with partner organizations around the city, introducing an innovative program.

"One area I feel I've done very well with at the Foundation is making connections between the various programs I have worked on to strengthen and improve each," Taylor said.

While she may be looking forward to retirement, she said her commitment to quality improvement isn't something she'll be able to – or would want to – shut off in herself, however it will be redirected to learning more deeply about other cultures.

Beyond her love of travel, she said the journeys ahead are inspired by her father, whose biggest regret was not using his retirement as he should of because he thought he had more time.

"I need to do what I can to not feel that way," Taylor said. "I intend to live my best life."

Her travel itinerary for 2024 is set. Her first stop is Belize. Then onward to see her son and grandson in Maryland. Then to Australia for three months where she's rented a camper van to travel. Then to England with her mother. Onward to Singapore with her cousin. Bali in October and November. And she recently added Rome in January 2025.

"I'm not going as a tourist but to live in the world and be a part of their lives and understand their cultures better. I'm not going as a traveler but as a world nomad," Taylor said who excitedly said that she's traveling on a backpacker's budget.

While she prepares to hit the open road, she reflected on her work with colleague Jennifer Condel, a space filled with laughter and ideas about quality improvement.

"I've loved the relationships I've developed over the years with my teammates. I have friendships now with such a variety of people who work here. Friendships that continue outside of the Foundation and hopefully will continue in retirement," Taylor said with equal gratitude that JHF allowed her the flexibility to create her own job description and to delve into projects that she was passionate about and which reflected her strengths, including her work with the PQC, Safer Childbirth Cities, and the Perinatal Champions program.