Biography

Karen Bankston, PhD
Senior Vice President
Drake Center
The Health Alliance
Cincinnati, Ohio
  
 

With almost 30 years of health care experience, Karen Bankston, PhD, Senior Vice President of Drake Center, is responsible for the development and execution of all services/programs at the Drake Center, a member of the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati. Prior to that she held the role of Senior Vice President for External Affairs for the Health Alliance, where she was responsible for positioning the organization in the various communities it serves. Reporting to the CEO, she was responsible for community and government relations, marketing and public relations, and the department of diversity. Additionally she held the position of Vice President Operations at University Hospital, the region’s Level 1 Trauma and Academic Center, where she managed a budget that was over $300 million dollars. Reporting to the Senior Vice President of the hospital, a practicing surgeon, she played a significant role in the planning and implementation of strategic objectives to enhance the quality of care delivery to the community it serves. Karen also served as the Vice President, Patient Care Services/Chief Nurse Executive at TUH, where she played a major role in the establishment of a case management program to facilitate a seamless effort between the hospital-based clinics and those clinics sponsored by the City of Cincinnati Health Department and the Cincinnati Health Network.

Karen is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Cincinnati YMCA Black Achiever Award, Who’s Who in American Nursing, the YWCA Career Woman of Achievement, and the University of Cincinnati Medical Center’s Marie Brown Leadership Award. In 2005, she received the Business Courier’s Health Care Hero award under the Manager Category and the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission Pope Corporate Leadership Award.

Karen earned an Associate Degree in Applied Science with a major in Nursing from the Youngstown State University. She went on to receive her Baccalaureate and Masters degrees from Kent State University. She recently received her doctoral degree at the University of Cincinnati, where she investigated the relationship of collective self-esteem and attitudes toward collaboration as predictors to collaborative practice behaviors used by nurses and physicians.

Karen sits on multiple boards and organizations, including the YWCA, Babies Milk Fund and the Center for Closing the Health Gap. She is a much sought after speaker, sharing with audiences regionally and nationally on the topics of service excellence and organizational dynamics.

Karen is a member of Zion Global Ministries. A native of Youngstown, Ohio, she is the proud mother of 3 adult sons and the wife of John Bankston.

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