Ms. Downes provides strategic and operational leadership across clinical documentation improvement, hospital and professional coding and health information management operations. Her leadership spans 14 academic and community facilities with a team of 500-plus full time employees. She also serves on Beth Israel Lahey Health’s responsible AI use committee, contributing to evaluation and governance of emerging technologies across the enterprise. Ms. Downes drove $41.3 million in annual revenue impact through AI-enabled clinical documentation improvement workflow optimization that earned executive recognition and supported expansion of her team. A former neurosurgical ICU nurse who transitioned into health IT leadership, she is completing a doctoral thesis focused on how AI can strengthen denial management without displacing human judgment in complex cases. She serves on the Association for Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists advisory board and as a member of the HealthLeaders Revenue Cycle Mastermind, and is an adjunct professor at Purdue Global University. As a woman of color in an executive leadership role, she is deeply committed to mentoring emerging professionals from underrepresented backgrounds.
