Dr. Ed L. Hansen, Ph.D., CHE

Chief Executive Officer

Apollo Hospitals Dhaka  

Dr. Ed Hansen has been a healthcare executive for more than twenty-three years. He began his career as an Assistant Administrator, in a seventeen hospital system, focusing on facilities and materials management. Later he became the Administrator responsible for JCAHO accreditation in that multi-hospital system. Using that experience he became his system’s Organizational Development specialist.

Since 1985 when he left the United States Marine Corps, Dr. Hansen has spent more than twenty years working in government-operated hospitals and health systems. He has done this as both an employee and a consultant. In these capacities he has worked in the healthcare environment at the national, state, and local levels in the United States and now internationally. 

But, it is the day-to-day operational side of healthcare that most excites Ed. His passion is reflected in the subject of his doctoral dissertation: A Process Model for Strategic and Operational Planning in Healthcare Organizations. Dr. Hansen appreciates that the leadership of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation allowed him to study the organization’s planning and operational efficiency over a three year period. Ed’s unique combination of academic interest in organizational development and hands-on operational experience as a Chief Executive Officer in hospitals enables him to share real practical expertise with his Leadership Teams.

His commitment to developing the human capital of an organization has caused Ed to become a mentor/coach in his leadership style. He measures his success in the growth of the people around him. By promoting a learning organization environment, Dr. Hansen encourages the people of the organization to develop their personal and professional character. For Ed, every good day involves seeing someone in the hospital stretching the boundaries of their professional comfort zone. He teaches the use of data and information to make sound management decisions and emphasizes the use of Strategic Dialogue to promote critical thinking in the organization.

Dr. Hansen is the 2005 recipient of the Athena Award for the State of Pennsylvania, USA. This is an international award recognizing persons who have made significant contribution to the advancement of women and minorities in the workplace. 

Dr. Hansen is passionate about customer service. The operational processes of an organization are never perfect and can always be enhanced to the benefit of customer/patient. To this point, he works within the organization, with every constituency, asking the question, “What can we do better tomorrow than we’re doing it today to enable us to meet the customer’s evolving needs and expectations?”

When in the course of his career Dr. Hansen was not working in governmental healthcare, he was directly involved in the operational enhancement of distressed community hospitals. In these situations too, he works with the people of the organization to improve processes at every level. In order to do this, Dr. Hansen uses tools he has personally developed and those of highly-regarded change agents and organizational development professionals in our industry. More important, he works with and through the people of the organization to effect mechanisms for continuous process improvement.

Most recently, Dr. Hansen completed the sale of a distressed community hospital to a national for-profit system. The action effectively allowed the hospital to continue in operation. Because of his interest in organizational development, he was able to craft an approach that strengthened the competitive position of the hospital and made much needed capital available. This complex activity, more than a year and a half in process, was a learning experience Ed believes will have valuable application in his future career.

Ed is currently working on a hospital-specific organizational development textbook. 

Ed has been married to his wife Susan for more than twenty-three years. Together they have three adult children. 

Both Ed and Susan like to run for recreation. Ed has completed at least one marathon per year for the last seven consecutive years.