Dr. Lydia Okutoyi is an obstetrician-gynaecologist, healthcare quality and patient safety leader, and health systems advocate with extensive experience in Kenya’s public health sector. She serves as Director of Health Care Quality at Kenyatta National Hospital. At KNH we have hosted the National Patient and Family-Centred Care Conference annually for the past five years, creating a platform for patients, families, healthcare professionals, advocates, policymakers, and other stakeholders to share experiences and co-create approaches to safer, more person-centred care.

Dr. Okutoyi is the Founding President of the Society for Quality Health Care in Kenya (SQHK) and a Founding Director of ACQUIRE Africa, supporting healthcare teams and institutions across Africa to strengthen quality improvement and patient safety through learning, collaboration, research, and capacity building.

At national level, she contributes to Ministry of Health Technical Working Groups contributed to the development and stakeholder engagement around Kenya’s draft Quality of Care and Patient Safety Bill, 2025.

Her contributions to patient safety have been recognised through the Patient Safety Africa Award, induction into the ISQua International Academy of Quality and Safety, and the Presidential honour of the Order of the Golden Warrior (OGW).

She is currently on sabbatical completing her doctoral research at the University of Nairobi, focusing on incident reporting at KNH.