An experienced, empathetic, and effective consultant and leader, Jennifer O’Brien, has been in practice management for 35+ years.
Jennifer’s career has been a perfect balance of consulting and doing. As an external consultant and educator, she has helped thousands of professionals, healthcare organizations, and academic departments develop and grow. That consultant’s perspective has allowed her to affect positive change and growth each time she has taken an interim leadership position in a large practice, hospital organization, or academic department.
As the CEO of Little Rock Diagnostic Clinic, Jennifer was the administrative leader of 200-employee, 36-physician practice with a five-room endoscopy center, comprehensive imaging, a 32-chair non-chemotherapy infusion center and a high complexity laboratory doing over 1 million tests per year, which served 1000 patients each day. Her doing further enhances her abilities as a consultant. She understands first-hand the challenges of leading and facilitating organizational performance improvement while managing day-to-day issues. Other organizations she has held leadership positions with include: Arkansas Specialty Orthopaedics (now OrthoArkansas), Division of Hematology-Oncology at Rush University Medical Center, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and Louisiana State University Medical Center;
Jennifer earned her bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a Master’s in the Science or Organization Development from Loyola University – Chicago. She has authored 55+ articles in professional publications and peer reviewed journals.
Her most beloved role was as wife of a plastic surgeon who after 30+ years of practice could no longer operate because of an injury and chose hospice and palliative care as a second career. Her love and support of him provided Jennifer an intrinsic understanding of the commitment that physicians and their families make to care for others. Her husband, Robert W. Lehmberg, MD, died two years after receiving a stage IV cancer diagnosis.
The art journal Jennifer created as selfcare during her late husband’s 22-month illness, was published as, The Hospice Doctor’s Widow: A Journal. The book won a Nautilus silver award in the Death & Dying/Grief & Loss category, a Next Gen Indie Book gold for Relationships, an Independent Publishers (IPPY) bronze for Gift and an International Impact gold for the interior design of the book. Jennifer has a second book scheduled to be released in September 2024.