As Senior Vice President of Clinical Effectiveness, Gail Thurmond, M.D., MBA, is responsible for the Methodist Le Bonheur Medical Staff including credentialing, medical staff committees, and physician quality. She has oversight of other physician leaders in the system including the Chief Medical Officers. Dr. Thurmond also served as Chief Medical Information Officer beginning in 2002 and was instrumental in early PowerChart design and implementation at Methodist.
Dr. Thurmond joined Methodist Healthcare in 1999 as Medical Director of Health Choice, LLC, the Physician Hospital Organization of Metrocare Physicians and Methodist; she subsequently served as Chief Medical Officer of that organization and developed a vibrant case management function for their managed contracts.
Prior to joining Methodist, she served as Director of Medical Informatics, Baptist Memorial Healthcare Corporation, and practiced neurology for many years in Boston and later in Memphis. She has been a member of the Methodist Healthcare Medical Staff since 1986.
Dr. Thurmond received her undergraduate education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her medical education at University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences in Memphis. She completed her internal medicine residency with the UT program at Memphis VA and John Gaston Hospitals. She then completed her neurology residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock. While practicing neurology in Boston, she was a Harvard clinical teaching associate at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Dr. Thurmond received her MBA from University of Tennessee Knoxville in 2000 and subsequently was appointed to their faculty, teaching Health Information Technology. She currently serves on their Physician Executive MBA (PEMBA) Advisory Council.
A Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Dr. Thurmond is passionate about patient safety and reducing variations in care; she champions several ongoing quality improvement projects. In 2004, she completed the Advanced Training Program in Healthcare Delivery Improvement under the leadership of Dr. Brent James at Intermountain Healthcare.