The Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT for 2018—CIOs and IT execs

2018's Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT—CIOs and IT execs

In the third annual recognition program, Health Data Management is recognizing 50 of the Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT. The awards are broken into three categories—CIOs/HIT executives at provider organizations, thought leaders and HIT vendor executives. The following is the list of CIOs/IT executives at provider organizations.

Pamela Arora

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Children’s Health

Years in HIT: 15

Previous Positions: Senior Vice President and CIO, UMass Memorial Health Care; Founder and Interim CEO, Liquidagents Healthcare; various positions and CIO for Perot Systems.

Significant Achievements: Arora has helped to guide her organization to a leading role among children’s hospitals and within the state of Texas. The facility was the first in the state to achieve HIMSS Stage 7 designation on the EMRAM scale. The facility was named a HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award winner.

Impact on HIT: She currently serves on the HITRUST board and AAMI board; she recently served on CHIME’s board of directors and the CHIME Education Foundation board.

Julie Berry

Title: CIO

Organization: Steward Health Care System

Years in HIT: 20+

Previous Positions: VP and CTO, Steward Health Care System; Corporate Director of Technical Services and Operation, Partners HealthCare System; Vice President of IT Operations and Security Delivery at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

Significant Achievements: While at BCBSMA, Berry led the introduction of new technology and reduced business outages by 40 percent; she also designed and implemented a three-year PC refresh cycle.

Impact on HIT: Berry is chairwoman of the Health Data Consortium Technical Advisory Board and a member and adviser on several other boards.

Linda Bund

Title: Director of Medical Informatics, Chief Health Informatics Officer

Organization: James J. Peters Veterans Administration Medical Center

Years in HIT: 30

Previous Positions: Various roles within the Veterans Administration at its care facilities.

Significant Achievements: Bund oversees a group of clinicians responsible for the facility’s computerized patient records system, including decision analysis tools that help optimize the facility’s performance. She also developed a VA-funded program for vets.

Impact on HIT: Bund’s VA facility is one of only a few that have developed a standalone data analytics program, helping to position it to be able to use data for clinical and administrative decision-making.

Bobbie Byrne, MD

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Advocate Health Care

Years in HIT: 17

Previous Positions: CIO, Acute Care Hospitals and Applied Clinical Informatics, Edward-Elmhurst Health; Executive Vice President, Healthlink.

Significant Achievements: Byrne moved over to Advocate, a large Chicago-area integrated delivery system after several years leading efforts at Edward-Elmhurst.

Impact on HIT: In her previous role at Edward-Elmhurst Health, Byrne completed full implementation of inpatient, outpatient, ambulatory clinical, revenue cycle and departmental systems within 16 months from contract signing to hospital go live. She helped achieve 82 percent physician computer order entry in a community hospital setting in the first week after going live.

Mitzi Cardenas

Title: SVP/Chief Strategy and Information Officer

Organization: Truman Medical Center

Years in HIT: 23

Previous Positions: Director, Information Systems, Children’s Medical Center Dallas; Senior Systems Engineer/Data Standards and Configuration Management Consultant, Axiom Resource Management; Director, Systems Integration, Baptist Health System; Manager, Special Projects, Baptist Health System; Regional Director of Operations, Kinetra LLC/IMS MEDACOM Networks.

Significant Achievements: Cardenas was instrumental in creating the TMC and ITWorks (now KCOne) Partnership with Cerner. She led a systemwide electronic health record rollout, with significant clinical and financial benefits.

Impact on HIT: Cardenas is active in local and state efforts related to the use of technology to improve care while reducing cost. She has served as chair of the AHA Interoperability Workgroup.

Myra Davis

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Texas Children’s Hospital

Years in HIT: 15

Previous Positions: Vice President, IS, Texas Children’s Hospital; Assistant Vice President, IS, Texas Children’s Hospital; Director, Customer Support, Texas Children’s Hospital.

Significant Achievements: Davis launched an enterprise data warehouse, porting data to the EDW over a four-month timeframe. She is partnering with clinical and quality leaders to drive data-based projects that are improving patient outcomes and reducing costs.

Impact on HIT: Davis has orchestrated the implementation of a systemwide EHR, electronic data warehouse, data analytics platform and other key IT projects at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Liz Devereux

Title: IT Director, Infrastructure Design and Support

Organization: Banner Health

Years in HIT: 21

Previous Positions: Director, Enterprise Virtual Infrastructure, Banner Health, and a variety of other roles within Banner Health.

Significant Achievements: She helped Banner become an early adopter of the Information Technology Information Library (ITIL) methodology. She worked with radiology, technology management teams and IT professionals to revamp the support model and architecture of picture archiving and communication services. The PACS centralization reduced the rate of lost patient films to nearly zero.

Impact on HIT: Devereux has led a series of IT efforts to reduce operational expenditures.

Tina Esposito

Title: Vice President, Information and Technology Innovation

Organization: Advocate Health Care

Years in HIT: 19

Previous Positions: Vice President, Center for Health Information Services; Director, Center for Health Information Services; Manager, Business Analytics; Manager, Clinical Decision Support Services, all with Advocate Health Care.

Significant Achievements: Esposito created a big data technical and analytics platform that interfaces with more than 50 data sources; developed and implemented an enterprise master patient identifier strategy.

Impact on HIT: Esposito is advancing the use of analytics and serving as executive leader over the Advocate Cerner Collaborative, which supports the study of the shift to accountable care.

Liz Johnson

Title: CIO of Acute Care Hospitals and Applied Clinical Informatics

Organization: Tenet Healthcare

Years in HIT: 37

Previous Positions: Executive Vice President, Healthlink.

Significant Achievements: Johnson provides the strategic vision and tactical planning for all clinical, patient management, imaging, productivity and supply chain systems used across Tenet Healthcare’s acute care hospitals nationwide.

Impact on HIT: Johnson has been a key influencer through leadership roles including serving as the 2017 Board Chair of CHIME, a board member for Health Level 7 International, and an appointee to the Health Information Technology Standards Committee of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT from 2009 to 2016.

Beverly D. Jordan

Title: VP and Chief Information and Transformation Officer

Organization: Baptist Memorial Health Care

Years in HIT: 15

Previous Positions: Chief Nursing Officer for Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis; VP/Chief Nursing Executive for Baptist Memorial Health Care.

Significant Achievements: In 2012, Jordan led the Baptist health system’s conversion of paper records into EHRs. In addition, Jordan united both the Baptist OneCare EHR team and the information systems group into one team called Baptist Technology Services.

Impact on HIT: At Baptist, Jordan recently led the technology and EHR implementation for the merger between Baptist and Mississippi Baptist Health System.

Rebecca Kaul

Title: Chief Innovation officer

Organization: University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Years in HIT: 17

Previous Positions: Healthcare IT Consultant; Chief Innovation Officer and President of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Technology Development Center (UPMC Enterprises); President, A-Life Hospital; Senior Director, Strategic Business Initiatives at UPMC.

Significant Achievements: Kaul built a 200-person innovation operation at UPMC. Through the UPMC center, Kaul created several joint ventures and spinoffs for UPMC, including A-Life Hospital, of which she served as president.

Impact on HIT: At UPMC, Kaul forged partnerships, invested in startups and created new companies as part of her work with UPMC’s innovation center.

Jennifer Liebermann

Title: Senior Director, Garfield Health Care Innovation Center

Organization: Kaiser Permanente

Years in HIT: 16

Previous Positions: Practice Leader, National Patient Care Services, Kaiser Permanente; Product Marketing, iScribe, CVS/Caremark; Health Care Policy/Labor Market Analysis, UCSF Center for the Health Professions.

Significant Achievements: Liebermann has been involved with the Garfield Innovation Center since January 2005, when Kaiser Permanente leaders asked her to research how to create a “Unit of the Future” at Kaiser Permanente, enabling the organization to test how new technologies could impact its front-line staff.

Impact on HIT: She led the crossfunctional team to develop, fund and launch the innovation center, with a multidisciplinary focus that also includes testing Kaiser Permanente’s new facility designs.

Sheree McFarland

Title: CIO

Organization: HCA, West Florida Division

Years in HIT: 29

Previous Positions: IT Division Director, HCA; IT Director, HCA Regional Medical Center, Hudson, Fla.; Director of IT, Lenox Hill Hospital; Consultant, E.C. Murphy, Yuhasz Consulting.

Significant Achievements: Coming in as the IT director of one HCA facility in 1996, she now has executive IT responsibilities for 16 hospitals in HCA’s West Florida division.

Impact on HIT: McFarland has led the organizations in her division to implement electronic health records, while managing a wide range of other tasks for HCA’s West Florida Division. She also is involved in a number of professional associations, particularly CHIME and HIMSS.

Pamela McNutt

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Methodist Health System

Years in HIT: 39

Previous Positions: Director of Information Systems, Hermann Hospital; programmer analyst, Whittaker Medicus.

Significant Achievements: McNutt leads a team of IT and biomedical professionals that helped the organization beome an early adopter of electronic health records. She led efforts to implement patient safety measures and to use technology to achieve operational efficiency at Methodist Health.

Impact on HIT: She is an active participant in CHIME, including playing leading roles on its policy committee. She is one of the leading authorities on dissecting HIT regulations and explaining their impact.

Theresa Meadows

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Cook Children’s Health Care System

Years in HIT: 25

Previous Positions: Regional Director at Ascension Health; Director of Clinical Systems at St. Vincent’s Health System; Engagement Manager at McKesson Provider Technologies; Senior Project Manager at WebMD.

Significant Achievements: At Cook Children’s Health Care System, she developed and implemented a technology strategy to support an integrated delivery network that includes acute care, ambulatory care, home health and the organization’s own health plan.

Impact on HIT: She served on the HHS Healthcare Cybersecurity Task Force and was given the role of Co-Chair of the Task Force.

Karen Murphy

Title: Chief Innovation Officer

Organization: Geisinger

Years in HIT: NA

Previous Positions: Secretary of Health, Pennsylvania Department of Health; Director, State Innovation Model Initiative, CMS; CEO and President, Moses Taylor Health Care System.

Significant Achievements: Murphy came to Geisinger from her role as Secretary of Health for the state of Pennsylvania. She leads the Steele Institute for Healthcare Innovation at Geisinger.

Impact on HIT: In her role as founding director of the Steele Institute for Healthcare Innovation at Geisinger, Murphy is aiming to incorporate technology and other care delivery advances to improve care for patients while cost-efficiently delivering care.

Jamie Nelson

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Hospital for Special Surgery

Years in HIT: 35

Previous Positions: SVP and CIO, Norwalk Hospital; VP of Customer Care at Innovatix; VP of Outsourcing Services at First Consulting Group; VP of Information Systems at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Significant Achievements: Nelson developed and implemented an IT strategy in support of the HSS strategic roadmap. She led the hospital’s decision and implementation process to completely replace its best-of-breed legacy systems with the Epic EMR across inpatient and ambulatory settings for all clinical and revenue cycle applications.

Impact on HIT: Nelson’s career has spanned academic medical center, multihospital system and community hospital system settings as well as management consulting and IT outsourcing.

Stephanie L. Reel

Title: SVP, Vice Provost and CIO; Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Sciences Informatics

Organization: Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine

Years in HIT: 37

Previous Positions: Director of IT, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Health System; CIO, Johns Hopkins Hospital, John Hopkins Health System; CIO, Johns Hopkins University.

Significant Achievements: Reel has worked on data center, infrastructure and staff consolidations; designed and deployed shared-service centers; and led resource planning activities for the enterprise.

Impact on HIT: Reel has contributed time and effort to the healthcare information technology industry, particularly by participating in federal policymaking initiatives.

Betty Jo Rocchio

Title: VP, Perioperative Performance Acceleration

Organization: Mercy

Years in HIT: 13

Previous Positions: Director, Surgical Services, Mount Carmel East Hospital; System Director, Surgical Services, Mount Carmel Health System; Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, Mount Carmel New Albany Surgical Hospital.

Significant Achievements: Rocchio designed and implemented a systemwide preference card reorganization and cleanup with an automated, centralized maintenance process that produced savings of $1.2 million.

Impact on HIT: Rocchio has bolstered her experience as a transformative surgical services executive with the successful management of HIT projects for community hospitals and physician practices.

Pamela Saechow

Title: Associate CIO

Organization: The Cleveland Clinic

Years in HIT: 20

Previous Positions: Senior Assistant Vice President for electronic medical record implementation and support, NYC Health + Hospitals; Director of Implementation and Project Management Office, Acute Care Product Manager, Senior Project Manager, Senior Applications Analyst and Pharmacy Technician, all at Sutter Health, Sacramento, Calif.

Significant Achievements: Saechow led a successful Epic EHR implementation at Sutter Health.

Impact on HIT: Saechow came into the high-profile job at NYC Health + Hospitals after years of EHR challenges at the health system. She changed the culture to prioritize workflow over technology and to foster teamwork and collaboration.

Pat Skarulis

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Years in HIT: 28

Previous Positions: Vice President and CIO, Rush Presbyterian Medical Center; Vice President and CIO, Duke University; Director of Administrative Services and Information Services, Princeton University.

Significant Achievements: Skarulis led Rush Presbyterian Medical through early implementations of clinical systems. At Sloan Kettering, Skarulis has helped engage physicians in IT initiatives.

Impact on HIT: Skarulis has played a vocal and leading role in the healthcare IT community, participating in CHIME, HIMSS and other industry initiatives. She was recognized for her contributions with the John Gall Jr. CIO of the Year award in 2008.

Laura Smith

Title: CIO

Organization: UnityPoint Health

Years in HIT: 19

Previous Positions: Various roles within UnityPoint Health.

Significant Achievements: Smith has led her IT team at UnityPoint Health through multiple large-scale implementations, new affiliate integrations, leadership shifts and team restructuring. In 2014, Smith helped manage the affiliation of UnityPoint Health and Meriter.

Impact on HIT: Smith takes an active role in mentoring new female leaders who are joining UnityPoint Health, coaching them for six to 12 months to ensure they have the support they need to succeed. She uses a personal touch in managing her staff, which numbers 600 across the three states in which the system operates.

Terri Steinberg, MD

Title: SVP, Vice Provost and CIO; Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Sciences Informatics

Organization: Christiana Care Health System

Years in HIT: 26

Previous Positions: Chief Medical Information Officer, Christiana Care Health System; Clinical Systems, Nemours; Product Manager, Siemens Medical Solutions; Physician, SUNY Stony Brook.

Significant Achievements: At Christiana Care, Steinberg’s team was awarded a Health Care Innovation grant to implement a novel IT integration architecture. Steinberg is actively involved in the Delaware Health Information Network.

Impact on HIT: As a clinician as well as a software developer, Steinberg has used her experience to guide the optimal implementation of clinical systems in a manner that is well accepted by doctors and nurses. She has lectured and consulted extensively on methods to ensure successful technology adoption by physicians and nurses.

Lisa Stump

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Yale New Haven Health System and Yale School of Medicine

Years in HIT: 10

Previous Positions: Various roles, Yale New Haven Health System.

Significant Achievements: Stump’s role is shared between the health system and the school of medicine and has driven collaboration beyond the implementation of the electronic medical records system to include data analytics, precision medicine, a digital web presence and unified communications. She is responsible for the HIT strategy, security and services across the health system, which operates five hospitals and more than 300 ambulatory sites. Yale New Haven has achieved Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM scale.

Impact on HIT: She has been appointed to Connecticut’s Health Information Exchange Legislative Advisory Committee. She participates on several advisory boards for HIT vendors, using those roles to advance interoperability initiatives.

Deanna Wise

Title: EVP/CIO

Organization: Dignity Health

Years in HIT: NA

Previous Positions: SVP and CIO, Vanguard Health Systtem; CIO, Maricopa Integrated Health Systems; Director of Applications, St. Vincent’s Hospital.

Significant Achievements: At Maricopa Integrated Health System, Wise in-sourced the IT department while cutting costs and increasing customer satisfaction. At Dignity Health, her largest achievement has been developing the strategy and roadmap for implementing the Cerner EHR across the system.

Impact on HIT: She’s led the push to implement Cerner at Dignity’s 40 facilities; the vast majority have reached Stage 6 of HIMSS Analytics’ model of EHR adoption. The project is expected to be completed soon.