Deb Sheehan

Deb Sheehan is a managing director of the BDO Center for Healthcare Excellence & Innovation inChicago, where she focuses on advancing innovative ideas that optimize clients’ competitive position in the market, create new business opportunities and lead to design solutions that yield superior outcomes.She leads client engagement teams and has been responsible for more than $4 billion in design solutions for health care systems across the globe. In a career spanning three decades, Ms. Sheehan has been honored for her evidence-based project-delivery approach by the Joint Commission, Modern Healthcare and the American Institute of Architects. She has presented and taught at numerous industry forums, including the Joint Commission Resources, the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE),the American Society of Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and the Strategic Research Institute. She also has published and presented to such organizations as Building Design & Construction, ACE BuildingSummit, Building Innovation Summit, Advisory Board, Health Facility Management, Joint Commission International, Sg2, World Health Congress, ASHE and The Strategic Research Institute. In the last few years, case studies of her work have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, ModernHealthcare, Building Design & Construction, Forbes and Healthcare Design. Ms. Sheehan receivedBuilding Design & Construction’s inaugural 40-under-40 Award, as well as the Healthcare Design TopTwenty Making a Difference in Healthcare. She is a diplomat of the American College of HealthcareExecutives, is active on the AIA National Academy for Architecture for Health, was a past committee chair of the Health Executives Forum, and serves on the Women Health Executives Network. She is credentialed with Evidence-Based Design Accreditation (EDAC) and Design Build Institute of America(DBIA) certifications, as well as USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).Before joining BDO, Ms. Sheehan was the executive director of Firm Strategies at CannonDesign and led the expansion of CannonDesign’s integrated design and construction capabilities. She received herB.A. in environmental design and architecture from Miami University and completed post-graduate work both in construction services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in project management at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.