Becoming the Best at Getting Better

Gorette Amaral joined the Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement (SMCI) as Executive Administrator on September 8, 2026.

As SMCI’s operations leader, Gorette will partner with faculty, staff, and leaders across the Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health to advance SMCI’s strategy, strengthen the systems that support our work, and expand the Center’s impact across Stanford Medicine and beyond.

Gorette brings more than 20 years of experience in health care operations, performance improvement, and strategic planning. Throughout her career, she has focused on building the teams, management systems, and improvement capabilities that enable people to do their best work and create greater value for patients and the people who care for them.

For the past seven years, Gorette served as the Managing Director for Transformation with The Permanente Medical Group, working in the San Leandro and Fremont Medical Centers. Previously, she served as the Regional Director for Operational Excellence & Portfolio Management, working across Kaiser Permanente’s 21 Northern California hospitals. In these roles, she partnered with physicians, senior leaders, and frontline teams to advance quality, patient experience, access, equity, workforce engagement, and resource stewardship. Earlier in her career, Gorette worked in performance improvement at Hoag Hospital and health services research at the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies.

Gorette earned a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University and a Master of Health Sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.