Kathy McDonald, PhD, MM, is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Systems, Quality and Safety at Johns Hopkins University. She holds primary appointments in the School of Nursing and the School of Medicine (General Internal Medicine), as well as academic affiliations in business, public health and engineering. She is co-director of the Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. She serves on the Advisory Committee of the Center for Equity in Aging at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. 

Her interdisciplinary scholarship aims to improve health care delivery, and relies on close partnerships with patients, frontline clinical teams, and delivery system leaders. Influential research products include over 100 evidence-based national quality, prevention and safety measures. In the diagnostic excellence domain, her team focuses on patient reported measures, diagnostic disparities solutions for diagnostic equity, narrative elicitation methods to deepen understanding of patient and care partner experiences.

She has served as president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and founding chair of the Patient Engagement Committee of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. She also served as a member of two National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Committees – Child Health and Healthcare Measures, and Improving Diagnosis and Reducing Diagnostic Errors. She is currently serving on the NAM Diagnostic Excellence Forum Planning Committee.