Brandy Olson Recognized by AIA as Emerging Healthcare Leader

Brandy Olson, director of operations design for HDR, was one of two inaugural recipients of the U40 Award from the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health and The Next Generation Committee.

The award program was created this year to recognize the emerging leaders and the movers and shakers in the healthcare design industry involved in advancing the creation of environments of healing.

In her role overseeing operations design, Olson connects with HDR’s healthcare clients by combining the analytic prowess of an engineer with the understanding of a healthcare administrator. That’s because she’s been both. She created the Operations Design team at HDR to help clients find the most efficient and effective ways to deliver healthcare, bridging the gap between realities and future operations. She’s not designing buildings; she’s designing what people do inside the buildings.

Olson is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt—a certified expert in using the Lean Six Sigma process to identify, address and correct a problem within a system. She guides healthcare clients toward change by combining process improvement strategies with a collaborative “silo-busting” process designed to break down organizational boundaries and hierarchies.

U40 award recipients were selected by a jury comprised of a diverse group of leaders within the healthcare design industry from a broad group of firms/organizations. Olson accepted the award at the Leadership Summit held in mid-July in Chicago, Illinois.