The Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT for 2019—CIOs and IT execs

The Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT for 2019—CIOs and IT execs

In its fourth annual recognition program for 2019, Health Data Management is recognizing 50 of the Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT. The awards are made in 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: 16

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

Kelley Barry

Title: Senior Clinical Applications Analyst

Organization: VCU Health

Years in HIT: 9

Previous Positions: Owner, KB Coppola; Intelligence Professional, Office of Naval Intelligence.

Significant Achievements: Barry maintains responsibility for IT applications within VCU Health System, as well as the operational command center, which opened in December 2017. She designs solutions that leverage best-of-breed technology, implements solutions and then trains relevant stakeholders. She leads projects from inception to completion for the organization.

Impact on HIT: Barry is an active thought leader in patient logistics and healthcare operations. She regularly assists other women in operational leadership roles at hospitals throughout the country.

Bobbie Byrne, MD

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Advocate Aurora Health

Years in HIT: 18

Previous Positions: SVP/CIO, Advocate Health Care; 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.

Myra Davis

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Texas Children’s Hospital

Years in HIT: 16

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 time frame. 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.

Anika Gardenhire

Title: AVP Digital Transformation

Organization: Intermountain Healthcare

Years in HIT: 15

Previous Positions: Various positions in Intermountain Healthcare; Manager, Deloitte Consulting; Senior Manager of Clinical Transformation, Leidos Health; independent contractor, Neilson Healthcare Group; Sales Representative, Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Significant Achievements: Gardenhire supports activities associated with Intermountain’s emerging technologies and architecture. She works with partners and key stakeholders to drive transformational change throughout the organization.

Impact on HIT: She is leading efforts at Intermountain to implement and meaningfully use health information technology, serving as the primary consulting resource.

Maia Hightower, MD

Title: CMIO

Organization: University of Utah Health

Years in HIT: 4

Previous Positions: CMIO, University of Iowa Health Care; Interim Chief Population Health Officer, University of Iowa Health Alliance; Associate Medical Director, University Healthcare Alliance, Stanford Health Care; Physician.

Significant Achievements: Hightower had been in the CMIO role for about three years at University of Iowa Health Care before moving to that position at UUH. In Iowa, she led EMR upgrades, optimization and support, including development of a physician informatics officer team to provide peer support to clinicians to increase EMR proficiency and adoption.

Impact on HIT: She brings an strong clinical perspective to the use of healthcare data, especially in terms of understanding data and its influence on managing population health.

Liz Johnson

Title: Chief Innovation Officer

Organization: Tenet Healthcare

Years in HIT: 38

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.

Kelly Jones

Title: Clinical Informatics Manager

Organization: Stamford Health

Years in HIT: 15

Previous Positions: Various positions, Stamford Hospital; registered nurse.

Significant Achievements: At Stamford Health, Jones evaluates the IT applications that will assist in increasing efficiency for caregivers, and then goes on to bridge the gap between clinical and IT. She is responsible for training staff, developing educational tools, as well as documents for systems and procedures.

Impact on HIT: She is playing a key role within the organization showing the capabilities of technology in achieving operational efficiency in the midst of new reimbursement practices, staffing shortages and rising costs.

Rose Ann Laureto

Title: CIO

Organization: Gundersen Health System

Years in HIT: 20

Previous Positions: Next Wave Advisors; CIO, ProMedica Health System; CIO, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills; CIO, University of Illinois at Chicago; Corporate Vice President, Superior Consultant Company; CIO, Sinai of Detroit/Detroit Medical Center.

Significant Achievements: At ProMedica, Laureto implemented an optimization program for legacy EHRs and developed a evaluation to support validation of Epic.

Impact on HIT: Executives at Gundersen say she possesses a strong background in architectural and integrated delivery system planning, ensuring compliance with budgets and timelines.

Jan Lee

Title: CEO

Organization: Delaware Health Information Network

Years in HIT: 25+

Previous Positions: Vice President, Knowledgebase and Content, and Physician Consultant, NextGen Healthcare Information Systems; various positions, Air Force medical services.

Significant Achievements: DHIN has been financially self-sustaining since 2012. Under Lee’s direction, DHIN continues to apply for grant funding that supports initiatives relevant to its strategic direction.

Impact on HIT: In addition to her experience at DHIN, her deep experience with NextGen and the U.S Air Force gives her insight into implementation challenges that providers face surrounding EHRs and optimizing their use.

Tabitha Lieberman

Title: Senior Vice President, Clinical and Revenue Cycle Applications

Organization: Providence St. Joseph Health

Years in HIT: 25+

Previous Positions: Various positions, Providence St. Joseph Health/Providence Health & Services; Director of Clinical Revenue Systems, The Everett Clinic; Associate Director of IT, UW Medicine IT Services; IT Manager, Eagle Rehab; Business Manager, Sound Physical Therapy.

Significant Achievements: Lieberman has been instrumental in implementing Epic across Providence hospitals and leading efforts to install it at St. Joseph Health. She has created Epic and application teams in three different organizations over the last 25 years.

Impact on HIT: In addition to implementing projects, she has helped develop tools that enables organizations to see true changes in quality metrics, financial performance and patient engagement.

Jennifer Liebermann

Title: Senior Director, Garfield Health Care Innovation Center

Organization: Kaiser Permanente

Years in HIT: 17

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 cross-functional team to develop, fund and launch the innovation center, with a multidisciplinary focus that also includes testing Kaiser Permanente’s new facility designs.

Julie Massey

Title: Associate Principal

Organization: The Chartis Group

Years in HIT: 12

Previous Positions: Director of Clinical Informatics and Quality, UHS; Chief Medical Information Officer and Medical Director of the Ambulatory Pediatric Network, Einstein Healthcare Network.

Significant Achievements: Within the last year, Massey began a new career in healthcare IT, joining The Chartis Group. Before that, she led significant IT efforts at UHS and Einstein Healthcare Network. Most recently, she was the clinical lead for population health initiatives and bundled payments at UHS.

Impact on HIT: Massey exhibits particular skills in engaging physicians in organization-wide groups to validate best practices and optimize clinical information systems.

Sheree McFarland

Title: Vice President, Information and Technology Innovation

Organization: HCA, West Florida Division

Years in HIT: 30

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.

Geraldine McGinty, MD

Title: Chair of the Board of Chancellors, American College of Radiology; Chief Contracting and Strategy Officer, Assistant Professor of Radiology and Healthcare Policy and Research at Weill Cornell Medicine; Assistant Attending Radiologist, New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Campus

Years in HIT: NA

Previous Positions: MD, Montefiore Medical Center.

Significant Achievements: McGinty is an internationally recognized expert in imaging economics. She has served an advisor to the CPT Editorial Panel, the JCAHO and the National Quality Forum.

Impact on HIT: She describes herself as “a passionate advocate for quality imaging and its vital role in the delivery of healthcare.” She is a member of WCM’s digital health strategy team, and is focusing on the impact of AI on medical imaging.

Pamela McNutt

Title: SVP/CIO

Organization: Methodist Health System

Years in HIT: 40

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: 26

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, Meadows 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 simultaneously cost-efficiently delivering care.

Kristin Myers

Title: Senior Vice President, Information Technology

Organization: Mount Sinai Health System

Years in HIT: 24

Previous Positions: Vice President, Senior Director and Director of the Epic Clinical Transformation Group, Mount Sinai Medical Center; Project Manager, Capgemini; Manager, New South Wales Dept. of Public Works and Service; System Integration Architect/Manager, Cerner.

Significant Achievements: In her role at Mount Sinai, Myers oversees the operation of a portfolio of more than 600 applications and leads several complex program, including Epic implementations.

Impact on HIT: She is working on advancing the use of IT to help Mount Sinai transition to value-based care.

Natalie Pageler, MD

Title: CMIO

Organization: Stanford Children’s Health

Years in HIT: 9

Previous Positions: Associate CMIO and Director of Clinical Informatics at Stanford Children’s Health/Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital; various roles, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Significant Achievements: Pageler directs a team of clinical informatics managers, inpatient physician informaticists and an information services training team for Stanford Children’s Health.

Impact on HIT: Among her many roles at Stanford, she is responsible for EMR optimization, EMR onboarding and efficiency training. She is in charge of the development of innovative informatics tools to enable high-quality, high-value patient care.

Laura Smith

Title: CIO

Organization: UnityPoint Health

Years in HIT: 20

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.

Michelle Stansbury

Title: Vice President of IT and Innovation

Organization: Houston Methodist Hospital

Years in HIT: 25

Previous Positions: Various roles at Houston Methodist, including Director of IT Corporate Business Systems and Staff Specialist.

Significant Achievements: Stansbury heads IT for all business systems, corporate systems and business cycle for Epic as well as leading innovation efforts for the organization, at its Center for Innovation for IT.

Impact on HIT: She works closely with every area of the organization to help optimize operations, such as the robotic process automation, care pathways, new developments for online scheduling, voice-activated scheduling, CRM and other projects.

Lisa Stump

Title: SVP/CIO

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

Years in HIT: 11

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.

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.

Deanna Wise

Title: CIO

Organization: Banner Health

Years in HIT: NA

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

Significant Achievements: Wise recently advanced to the lead IT role at Banner Health, leaving Dignity Health after nearly eight years there. At Dignity Health, her largest achievement was developing the strategy and road map for implementing the Cerner EHR across the system.

Impact on HIT: She 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.

Jean Wright, MD

Title: Chief Innovation Officer

Organization: Atrium Health

Years in HIT: 26

Previous Positions: Various roles, Carolinas HealthCare System; Vice President of Children and Women at Memorial Health; Vice President of Medical Management, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

Significant Achievements: Wright is CIO for the Innovation Engine, part of the Strategic Services division at Atrium, which focuses on fostering the environment for innovation, serving as an internal consultancy.