Tonia Burnette

Senior Director for Architecture + Planning

Johns Hopkins Health System

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Tonia Burnette was a featured speaker at HealthSpaces’19.

Tonia Burnette, RA is the Senior Director for Architecture + Planning for Johns Hopkins Health System. Prior to joining JHHS she was a Principal and Leader of the Health Practice for large international firms specializing in healthcare design. Throughout her 37 years of practice she has worked on projects ranging from $50,000 renovations to $1+ billion new building programs. These engagements have involved every department and site-of-service supporting the delivery of healthcare including: academic medical centers and community health systems, inpatient and outpatient services, public and private sectors, domestic and international clients. Tonia has organized, developed and led teams creating solutions beginning with strategic, operational, and facility master planning through A/E design, construction, and occupancy. 

Her priority has always been to promote the health, safety, and well-being of every facility occupant – every patient, clinician, staff member, and visitor. Tonia has always believed that the built environment has an extraordinary ability to impact health. Since this impact is so great, we must create ways to measure results and move successful solutions forward. Therefore, health care design must be rooted in metrics that demonstrate health and patient experience impacts and then utilizing design thinking and replicable processes, ensure we meet those targeted metrics. 

Architecture and planning are crucial to the successful delivery of healthcare and improving the patient experience, but are only part of the solution. Sometimes the focus should be less on investing in new space and more on creatively redefining how to best use the space available. Tonia’s architectural design skills, strategic and operational planning experience, budget and schedule management expertise, and passion for collaborating with physicians, nurses, care-givers, faculty, administrators, and support staff enable her to reach consensus on and activate integrated solutions that are also fiscally responsible.