Chief Executive Officer

Ms Mary Day was appointed in 2020 to the role of Chief Executive in St James’s Hospital. She was previously Chief Executive of Ireland East Hospital Group and in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital. She has just completed a secondment for 18 months as National Director for Acute Operations in the HSE.

Mary was also appointed as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems in December 2010.

Mary has contributed to the development of lean management for healthcare improvement by setting up the Lean Academy in the Mater Hospital and further developing the Lean Improvement programme across the Ireland East Hospital Group to implement systems-wide improvements across the Group and create a sustainable infrastructure for expanding internal capacity and capability to deliver transformational change.  She is a passionate advocate for lean improvement to deliver sustainable results, empower and motivate staff, break down silos and release time to improve patient care, and set up the Transformation Office for Lean Management in St James’s Hospital.

She is also a strong advocate for the delivery of an integrated Academic Health Sciences Centre and is keen to ensure academia, innovation and research are embedded in service delivery. The development of the Academic Health Science model as a high-performance vehicle for better health, and the foundations reflect significant international experience demonstrating that the integration of education, innovation and research in an Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) model improves both patient care and drives the knowledge economy. Her strategic ambition for the St James’s Hospital Campus is to evolve into an Integrated Academic Health Science Campus which will deliver improved healthcare outcomes for our patients and create the most dynamic healthcare campus nationally and pan-Europe.

Mary’s professional and academic qualifications include a BSc (Hons) in Cancer Nursing and an MSc in Health Service Management.