Patricia A. Gabow

Patricia Anne Gabow (née Acquaviva; born January 1944) is an American academic physician, medical researcher, healthcare executive, author and lecturer.

[4] Her father, a private first class in the US army, was killed in action in March 1945 during the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine,[4] after which she and her mother moved in with her uncle and grandparents.

[7] She began as an instructor in the Division of Renal Diseases at the University of Colorado, advancing to a full professorship in 1987.

[5] Gabow served as Chief of Renal Disease for Denver Health and Hospitals, a city charter department, from 1973 to 1981.

[9] The Lean management system cuts waste and streamlines processes without restricting access to healthcare by insured patients or necessitating staff layoffs.

[12][9] Other "best practices" which Gabow adopted from other industries include "advice nurse lines", new IT systems, and an employee reward program.

[5][13] During Gabow's tenure, Denver Health invested more than $400 million in IT,[5] and recognized cost savings first by transferring 75% of billing to electronic statements and then by going paperless.

She was the principal investigator on the National Institutes of Health Human Polycystic Kidney Disease research grant, which ran from 1985 to 1999.

[5] She has been a member of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission,[17] the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation board, and the Health Advisory Committee of the National Governors' Association.

[19] Gabow is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing excellence in teaching and physician care, including the 1998 A.N.

[5][22] In June 1971, she married Harold N. Gabow, a doctoral student in computer science at Stanford University.