Katy Welkie
Former CEO & VP | Intermountain Children’s Health
Katy Welkie’s 43-year career at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital culminated in leading the creation of the groundbreaking Primary Promise program — expanding pediatric and behavioral health services, opening a second hospital campus and rallying the community to raise over $600 million to elevate children’s healthcare across the Intermountain West.
As the leader of the only quaternary care children’s hospital in the area, Katy Welkie dedicated her service and career to creating an institution ranked among the best of the best.
“We look at the U.S. News and World Report. They put out a yearly best children’s hospitals list, which we use as guidance on where we need to focus our efforts,” Welkie says. “In recent years, we’ve scored in the top 50 in all 11 areas. That’s an amazing, amazing accomplishment, but because we are the community’s resource, we have to keep ourselves there.”
Welkie began her career 43 years ago as a pediatric nurse at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital. She capped it off by serving as the hospital’s CEO and VP of Intermountain Children’s Health starting in 2019. She retired in August 2025.
Welkie earned the hospital its distinguished marks through many years of devoted work. Her efforts culminate in the Intermountain Health’s Primary Promise program, described on the website as a “once-in-a-generation vision to build the nation’s model health system for children.”
“When we started to create this vision, we thought about kids all across the continuum, from the womb of a mother all the way up to adolescence,” Welkie says. “We needed to think about: How do you expand care so more kids can get care? How do you address emerging health needs?”
Among many initiatives that stemmed from the vision, Welkie and her team had noticed that youth in the Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital service area were increasingly struggling with mental and behavioral health. Welkie wanted to provide more targeted services for adolescent mental health, or at least have more bed availability to keep up with the need.
“Sometimes there were up to 25 kids waiting for beds. … There just was not enough capacity; I’m not sure if there ever will be, but we recognized that we weren’t doing as much as we could,” Welkie says. “This was an opportunity to step up and increase capacity and improve the way kids are cared for.”
As part of the Primary Promise program, Intermountain Health built a family-centered behavioral health center in Taylorsville, Utah. The $96 million flagship campus provides nearly a 50 percent increase in inpatient beds.
When Welkie initially rolled out the plan for the Primary Promise program and what needs Intermountain Health wanted to meet through it, the team’s goal was to raise $500 million. At the time, the number felt unachievable.
“We’d never raised anything like that — within Intermountain, within the state, anything — for children,” Welkie recalls. “Then, we were pushed by our community to increase the goal from $500 million to $600 million. Then, we blew right through that target! What an incredibly generous community we have.”
With the generous donations of the Intermountain community, Welkie’s Primary Promise program built the second campus of Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital. Dedicated in February 2024, the campus is “the most significant enhancement in pediatric healthcare in Utah and the Intermountain West in more than a century,” claims an Intermountain Health press release.
“Intermountain’s recognition and investment in children’s health is phenomenal,” Welkie says. “As that continues, we will be able to have the very best kid healthcare for children in the country.”