Kathleen Buchanan

Kathleen brings a wealth of knowledge, community and leadership experience to this role and we look forward to benefitting from her expertise as we continue to provide quality addictions and mental health care services and access for New Brunswickers. In this role, Kathleen will work with the Executive Clinical/Academic Department Head, Co-Leader of Addiction and Mental Health to set the strategic direction for Addictions and Mental Health services at Horizon.

Kathleen began her career at Horizon as a Patient Safety Consultant in 2011 and in 2015 moved into a leadership role with Addictions and Mental Health Services where she managed ER Mental Health, Mobile Crisis Units, Flexible Assertive Community Treatment (FACT), and the Intake team. In this work, Kathleen formed a formal partnership with the RCMP and Mobile Crisis and co-led a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt process improvement project for ER Mental Health.

Kathleen then assumed the role of Director for Primary Health Care in 2018, overseeing all Moncton-area community health centres and health clinics. In 2020, she co-led the development and implementation of the area’s COVID-19 Assessment Centre with Dr. Jody Enright and Dr. Ken Gillespie.

Kathleen then moved to Saint John where she supported local shelters in the development of their COVID-19 operational plans and co-led the COVID-19 monitoring and contract tracing teams and the development of vaccination clinics as a Public Health manager.

In 2022, Kathleen returned to Moncton where she has been managing the Moncton Primary Health Care clinic (refugee clinic), Salvus Clinic, Port Elgin Health Centre, Tantramar Primary Health Care clinic, the Nurse Practitioner (NP) Horizon Hub, NPs in Collaborative Practice, and the Health Care Coordination Team.

Kathleen holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion from Dalhousie University, has obtained her Certified Health Executive from the Canadian College of Health Leaders, and is near completion of her Master of Business Administration Healthcare program from Northern Arizona University.