David "Scott" Hencshel, M.S.

David “Scott” Hencshel is a nationally recognized leader, educator, and practitioner in healthcare performance improvement, Lean Six Sigma, and strategic management, with more than two decades of experience improving complex, high-risk organizations across government healthcare, academic medicine, and large enterprise systems.

Scott currently serves as Chief, Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Support Branch at the Defense Health Agency (DHA), where he leads and supervises a team of 22 CPI professionals responsible for strengthening performance across the global Military Health System. In this role, he oversees strategy management, analytics, measurement, reporting, and enterprise-wide improvement initiatives, while also serving as the DHA CPI curriculum developer, senior instructor, and executive advisor to Defense Health Networks and Military Treatment Facilities.

Previously, Scott served as the Lean Six Sigma Deployment Director and Senior Master Black Belt for the U.S. Army Medical Command and the Office of The Surgeon General, where he guided enterprise-level improvement strategy and change management across Army Medicine. Under his leadership, the Army Medical Command’s Lean Six Sigma program received the Army’s top Organizational Deployment Award six times in eleven years, including five consecutive years. Earlier roles include Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Special Staff at the Army Medical Department Center and School, and Director of Lean Six Sigma Training and Deployment, where he integrated performance improvement into strategic planning for the Army’s largest civilian-accredited service school.

Scott is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Certified Balanced Scorecard Professional, with deep expertise in statistical analysis, systems thinking, high-reliability organizations, and change leadership. His applied work spans process cycle efficiency, advanced analytics (including regression and rare-event measurement), strategy mapping, executive decision-making, and the alignment of improvement initiatives to organizational mission and outcomes.

An experienced educator, Scott is Adjunct Faculty in the Health Care Administration Department at Trinity University, where he teaches Health Care Performance Improvement to graduate and executive students. He also teaches Lean Six Sigma at Baylor University’s Robbins Institute for Health Policy and Leadership, the University of the Incarnate Word and serves as Distinguished Faculty for the Association of Air Medical Services Safety Management Training Academy. Across these roles, he is known for translating complex analytical concepts into practical leadership tools that healthcare executives can immediately apply.

Scott is a frequent invited speaker and international lecturer on healthcare quality, high reliability, and performance improvement, with presentations delivered across the United States, Europe, and Ukraine. His work emphasizes disciplined problem solving, data-driven decision-making, and the relentless pursuit of better outcomes for patients, staff, and organizations.

He holds a Master of Science in Aeronautical Science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from The University of Texas at Austin.