2017 most powerful women in healthcare IT: CIOs-IT execs

2017's most powerful women in healthcare IT: CIOs-IT execs

Health Data Management is honoring 75 of the Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT. The awards are broken into three categories: thought leaders, provider/payer executives and CIOs/IT executives. What follow is the list of CIOs/IT executives. All 75 women will be honored at The Most Powerful Women in Healthcare IT conference, which will be held May 17, 2017, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. For more information on the event, click here.

Mary Alice Annecharico

Title: Senior Vice President/Chief Information Officer

Organization: Henry Ford Health System

Years in HIT: 30

Previous Positions: Healthcare Management consulting across leading academic organizations; executive director of information systems at University of Pennsylvania Medical School; Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at University Hospitals.

Significant Achievements: Led the implementation of the Epic electronic health record that included revenue cycle and patient portal applications for the acute and post-acute environments. This resulted in improved patient care quality, safety, and outcomes as well as business and clinical alignment and transformation. The organization continues to realize positive return on investments and enhanced integration across hospital and ambulatory environments.

Impact on HIT: Annecharico is a strategic thought leader and collaborator who develops and empowers strong teams to lead change and to harness digital innovation to respond to the dynamic changes within the healthcare landscape. A HIMSS Fellow and past editor of the Journal of Health Information Management, she is a current member of the KLAS Advisory Board.

Pamela Arora

Title: Senior vice president/CIO

Organization: Children’s Health

Years in HIT: 14

Previous Positions: Senior Vice President and CIO, UMass Memorial Health Care; Founder and Interim CEO, Liquidagents Healthcare; Various positions and CIO for Perot Systems Corp.; Team Leader, Electronic Data Systems; Application Developer, General Motors Corp.

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 its EMRAM scale. The facility has been named several times to the InformationWeek 500 and Most Wired, and it was named a HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award winner.

Under her leadership, Children’s Health earned Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) Common Security Framework certification and the Texas Health Service Authority’s SECURETexas Certification. Children’s Health has won the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Grace Award (2014) the CHIME/AHA Transformational Leadership Award (2016) for the organization’s work promoting cybersecurity across the continuum of care. In 2017, Arora received the John E. Gall CIO of the Year by HIMSS and CHIME.

Impact on HIT: Arora has taken the skills and managerial talents she learned at Perot Systems and EDS and successfully applied them to the hospital setting. Early on, she sensed the importance of information security and has worked closely with the Health Information Trust Alliance to show how a healthcare organization can aspire to HITRUST standards to protect information.

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, and she has served on the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center (DCAC) board.

Kimberly Lynn Baker

Title: Director, NYP Analytics

Organization: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, New York

Years in HIT: 10

Previous roles: Manager, Data Analytics, NewYork-Presbyterian; Project Lead, Data Analytics, NewYork-Presbyterian; Consultant, Health and Public Service, Revenue Cycle Management Practice, Accenture, New York; Grant and Administrative Coordinator, Bipolar Clinic and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Site Operations Lead, Patient Access, Accretive Health, Boston; Business Analyst, Health and Public Service, Accenture, Boston, 2007-2009.

Significant achievements: Upon taking the helm of NYP Analytics in May 2016, Baker and her staff reviewed all the reports the department was sending out to see if the information was still useful to end users. She partnered with nursing to create a dashboard that predicts patient falls, catheter-associate urinary tract infections, central line infections and other important patient safety issues. Baker Created a dashboard in a data visualization software system called Tableau to manage pastoral care, helping clergy predict which patients and families are most in need of pastoral services on any given day. She hired staff to help with Lean and Agile process improvement methodology.

Impact on HIT: Baker constantly looks for ways to improve processes and information delivered to people on the front lines of patient care and in hospital operations. After starting with her own team of analysts creating dashboards, she decided to adopt a federated model, offering Tableau training and licenses to analysts in other areas of NYP so those leaders could build frameworks most suited for their departments. This has helped foster collaboration among departments where silos once existed.

Angela Burgess

Title: CIO

Organization: Randolph Hospital

Number of Years in HIT: 9+

Previous Positions: Consultant/Senior Consultant, Manager, Healthcare Consulting Division, Premier Inc.; Director, Decision and Operations Support, Randolph Hospital; Senior Director, Financial Services, Randolph Hospital, 2002-2008.

Significant Achievements: Burgess led Randolph Health through the selection and implementation of a replacement electronic medical record (EMR) system. The process involved engaging key stakeholders in selecting a comprehensive EMR system, proposing a budget and a timeline, and implementing a system that would take the facility well into the future. Under her leadership, the organization exceeded its objective by incorporating clinician workflows in every step of the process and optimizing the system’s capabilities. This accomplishment has helped Randolph Health meet its goals of safer patient care, improved outcomes, and more streamlined processes.

She transitioned the facility from Stage 3 to Stage 6 in the HIMSS EMR adoption model over a four-year period, and she's worked with a key technology vendor partners to provide senior leadership executives with real-time dashboards to make better decisions and do their jobs efficiently. The dashboards pull from various data sources to provide a comprehensive consolidated operational and quality dashboard.

Impact on HIT:
Burgess has worked closely with vendor partners to enhance the capabilities of their products. Her team has dedicated many hours to focus groups and development projects, resulting in improved usability to clinicians and safer technology for patients. She openly shares her knowledge with her peers so they can collectively move the industry forward in these quickly changing and challenging times.

Bobbie Byrne, MD

Title: System Executive Vice President, Chief Medical and Quality Officer

Organization: Edward-Elmhurst Health

Number of Years in HIT: 16

Previous Positions: Eclipsys Corporation, Malvern, PA, Senior Vice President, Clinical Solutions; Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Tampa Fla.; Pediatrician, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare.

Significant Achievements: Byrne designed innovative mechanism to cooperate with DuPage Medical Group, maintaining individual organization’s needs while achieving over $5 million in savings. Architect of Illinois Health Partners backbone for quality and cost analysis and care management supporting all at risk insurance products as well as Medicare Shared Savings ACO. Implemented Lawson ERP solutions, including human resources, accounts payable, material management and payroll at both Edward/Linden Oaks and Elmhurst locations to create a single financial operations system. Reduced timelines through streamlined decision making process.

Impact on HIT: She was the executive sponsor for $45 million enterprise solution implementation of Epic at Edward and Linden Oaks Hospitals. Completed full implementation on time and on budget, including all inpatient, outpatient, ambulatory clinical, revenue cycle, and departmental systems with 16 months from contract signing to hospital go live. Achieved 82 percent physician computer order entry in community hospital setting in first week with physician satisfaction scores 20 percent higher than national Epic benchmark through innovative physician training and support mechanism that is now quoted by Epic as best practice. Achieved Epic-designated “Top Performer” for being in the top 10 percent nationally of Epic customers on eight different financial metrics within three months of go live.

Mitzi Cardenas

Title: Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy and Information Officer

Organization: Truman Medical Center

Number of Years in HIT: 22

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; Account Executive, Kinetra LLC/IMS MEDACOM Networks; Physician Services Coordinator/Trainer, Kinetra LLC/IMS MEDACOM Networks.

Significant Achievements: Cardenas was instrumental in creating the TMC and ITWorks (now KCOne) Partnership with the Cerner Corp. She led the system-wide electronic health record roll out in 13 months, with significant clinical and financial benefits. The organization achieved HIMSS Stage 7 recognition on both the acute and ambulatory side and earned the prestigious Davies Award, and achieved meaningful use in all applicable years. She led the development of a growth strategy that is changing the care delivery model at TMC focusing on community access to care. As part of this strategy, TMC is building an integrated primary care clinic that is physically attached to a YMCA in an underserved area in Kansas City with high rates of chronic disease.

Impact on HIT: Cardenas is active in local and state efforts related to the use of technology to improve care while reducing cost. She is currently the chair of the AHA Interoperability Workgroup, formerly co-chaired the Technology and Operations workgroup for the formation of a statewide HIE, and now chairs the finance committee for a RHIO that supports the local area. She also led and executed a multi-year strategic plan and created a planning methodology that includes participation by medical staff leaders, organization executives, and TMC boards. Cardenas also leads the Capital Planning Committee for the organization.

Most currently, Cardenas played the lead role in developing an innovative living-lab partnership with the Cerner Corp. designed to use technology to improve the health of the community and of the vulnerable population that TMC serves in its role as the region’s safety net organization.

Melinda Costin

Title: VP and CIO

Organization: JPS Health Network

Years in HIT: 33

Previous Positions: Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Corporate Applications, Baylor Health Care System; Senior Area Leader, HealthLink (an IBM company); Vice President, HealthLink; Manager, 3M Health Information Systems; Manager, McDonnell Douglas; CIO, Ellis Hospital; CIO, Missouri Baptist Medical Center.

Significant Achievements: In her various positions, Costin has led in the development and implementation of products that support electronic health records, including in the area of clinical decision support. While working for vendors, she worked on the development and implementation of EHRs, including one that was developed in conjunction with Intermountain Health Care, a recognized leader in the use of clinical rules to promote patient safety.

Impact on HIT: With a career that spans the development of many of the products now common in hospitals, Costin has shared her accumulated knowledge with her colleagues, influencing the growth of the industry in many supportive relationships. She’s been an active member of HIMSS and CHIME, and a frequent presenter on IT topics.

Myra Davis

Title: Senior Vice President/CIO

Organization: Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston

Years in HIT: 14

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

Primary achievements: Davis launched an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) in record time, porting data to the EDW over a four-month time frame. She is successfully partnering with clinical and quality leaders to drive data-based performance improvement projects that are improving patient outcomes and reducing costs.

Impact on HIT: Since joining Texas Children’s Hospital, Davis has effectively orchestrated the implementation of a system wide electronic health record (EHR), EDW, data analytics platform and other key IT projects. These technological advances have given physicians, nurses and others at Texas Children’s access to data that allows them to determine how to improve care for children and and reduce unnecessary costs. For example, one cross-functional workgroup reduced the number of unnecessary chest X-rays ordered for asthma patients by 35 percent. Another group that looked at appendectomies decreased complications and lengths of stay for children who undergo this common surgery, in part by standardizing the use of a mono-therapy antibiotic.

Liz Devereux

Title: IT Director, Infrastructure Design and Support

Organization: Banner Health, Phoenix

Years in HIT: 20

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

Primary achievements: She helped Banner become an early adopter of 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 (PACS) into a centralized deployment to share data and workflow at all Banner facilities. That led to the creation of a new Department of Infrastructure Design and Support. She also centralized other data centers so that the same information on a given patient is available at any Banner Health location.

Impact on HIT: Devereux has led a series of IT efforts to reduce operational expenditures, freeing up money for clinical IT projects. The PACS centralization reduced the rate of lost patient films from the industry standard of 5 to 8 percent to nearly zero. In 2012, Devereux reimagined IT services at the health system, changing how technologists at Banner develop, implement and optimize the services they provide, in the context of process improvement. She instituted a formal project framework, allowing for continuous feedback, regular quality checks and a formal risk-mitigation strategy.

Tina Esposito

Title: Vice President, Information and Technology Innovation

Organization: Advocate Health Care

Years in HIT: 18

Previous Positions: Vice President, Center for Health Information Services; Director, Center for Health Information Services; manager, business analytics; and manager, clinical decision support services, all with Advocate Health Care

Significant Achievements: Creation of a big data technical and analytics platform interfacing more than 50 data sources; development and implementation of an enterprise master patient identifier strategy; and analytics development to support accountable care and population health; strategic oversight of focused technology deployment to eliminate key causes of patient injury, mortality and cost.

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

Nancy A. Evans

Title: Chief Information Officer, Hospitals

Organization: Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Years in HIT: 40

Previous Positions: Evans has worked in IT at Vanderbilt since 1976 and has been involved in project management and major system implementations at VUMC since 1984.

Significant Achievements: VUMC announced in December 2015 that is taking a unified approach to health IT with a range of applications from HIT vendor Epic Systems, replacing some of VUMC’s self-developed clinical systems. The organization plans to switch to Epic software in November 2017 for medical record-keeping and clinic workflow, ordering of tests and treatments in hospitals and clinics, hospital scheduling and admissions, nursing documentation, medical management of surgical patients, outpatient prescribing, medication administration, (non-retail) pharmacy management and hospital billing.

Impact on HIT: Evans was a critical part of the steering/selection committee that picked Epic to be the vendor for VUMC’s new electronic health record and revenue cycle system. The agreement with Epic is designed to create a more integrated, efficient and mature information systems environment. Evans has continued to be a trusted HIT leader and partner for the executive leadership team throughout her career.

Beth Grimes

Title: Director of Enterprise Data Analytics

Organization: Gwinnett Medical Center

Number of Years in HIT: 20+

Previous Positions: Director, Business Support, Surgical Services, Gwinnett Hospital System; Surgical Information System Administrator, Surgical Services, Gwinnett Hospital System; Clinician, Surgical Services, Gwinnett Hospital System; Surgical Staff RN, Emory University Hospital; various other surgical staff roles.

Significant Achievements: Grimes worked with a technology vendor in 2015 to build a business intelligence solution to provide dashboards to users and support the medical center’s new intensivist program. The implementation of a business intelligence tool aided in measuring hospital and individual performance, which led to quick and accurate information delivery, better data-driven decision making, and improved productivity and efficiency. She introduced and established best practices using a solution that would allow for better and faster data-driven decision-making. Grimes worked with Gwinnett’s physicians to embrace and use a physician performance management approach.

Impact on HIT: Data analytics development has been Grimes’s focus over that last several years. Development of data governance oversight has improved Gwinnett’s methodology and quality control for consistency of data creation across platforms. The development of a dashboard platform for hospital operations, outcomes metrics, physician scorecards and an ICU specific platform was a huge accomplishment for the organization. Conversion of numerous manual processes to electronic methods, from charge capture to volume reporting to national database reporting, allows more productive time within departments. Clinical report development, like patient deterioration reports based on MEWS data elements, has allowed clinical staff to intervene in patient care prior to a negative event, thus improving patient outcomes. Volume reporting has improved consistency and timeliness for areas such as physician credentialing, strategic planning and budget management. The focus now is continued education and adoption for a variety of business intelligence utilization.

Jessica Grosset

Title: Vice Chair for Infrastructure and Operations, Department of Information Technology

Organization: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Years in HIT: 36

Previous Positions: Vice Chair for Enterprise IT Applications, Department of Information Technology, Mayo Clinic; Chair, Department of Rochester Information Technology, Mayo Clinic; Vice Chair for Information Technology, Department of Facilities and Systems Support Services, Mayo Clinic; Chair, Mayo Integrated Clinical Systems Division, Mayo Clinic; various other roles within Mayo Clinic.

Significant Achievements: For a decade, Grosset headed the IT department for the flagship Rochester campus, overseeing applications, infrastructure and adoption of clinical systems. In 2013, sensing new challenges in cybersecurity, Mayo launched the Network Renewal Project and put Grosset in charge of the entire program across all campuses. This $100 million-plus effort is replacing about 2,500 network access points in more than 420 buildings, implementing two-factor user authentication across the enterprise and segmenting the Mayo network to isolate any malware that gets into the system. It also is increasing network capacity and performance to support the data demands of digital health and precision medicine.

While all healthcare organizations are facing ever-more-sophisticated cybersecurity threats each year, Mayo has some special considerations since it draws famous patients from all over the world, including world leaders. Any breach involving a foreign dignitary could become a diplomatic nightmare not just for Mayo, but for the United States government, Grosset noted.

Impact on HIT: Under Grosset's leadership, Mayo Clinic became essentially paperless long before the majority of community hospitals and physician practices even started transitioning to electronic health records. All Mayo hospitals and ambulatory clinics have reached either Stage 6 or 7—the two highest levels—on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model. Mayo is in the midst of a two-year replacement of all clinical information systems with an Epic Systems EHR. While Grosset is not leading that effort, the Network Renewal Project is upgrading the IT infrastructure to handle the new system. Grosett has already guided the transition of Mayo Clinic data hosting from seven in-house facilities to one hosted by Epic in Verona, Wis.

Donna Hart

Title: Chief Information Officer

Organization: Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS), Chicago

Years in HIT: 36

Previous roles: IT Operations Officer and Director of Information Systems, CCHHS; Director of Information Systems and Acting Associate Administrator, Provident Hospital of Cook County; Acting Director of Information Systems, Provident Hospital; Operations Manager, Provident Hospital; Operations Manager, Community Health Training Center of the Springfield (Ill.) Urban League Chicago Branch; Senior Associate Information Center Analyst, IBM Corp., Chicago; Senior Computer Operator, Hollister Inc., Libertyville, Ill.; U.S. Army, 1975-1981.

Significant Achievements: Hart implemented a Cerner electronic health record and helped Provident and Stroger hospitals earn $20 million in Medicare and Medicaid incentive money through the Meaningful Use program. She implemented patient portal through the Cerner system on behalf of CountyCare, Cook County's Medicaid managed care plan. Her organization reached Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model for both John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital and Provident Hospital, as well as for the health system's ambulatory clinics.

Impact on HIT: When Hart first came to the Cook County Health and Hospitals System, there were separate IT departments at all three hospitals then in operation. (The organization is down to two facilities now). She was at Provident at the time, not the main Cook County Hospital—the predecessor to Stroger Hospital—but pushed the idea of consolidating operations into a single IT department.

According to her résumé, Hart created a system of change management within the HIS department, which she then convinced other departments within the health system to adopt. She was able to effect wider change because she heads up clinical engineering and communications as well.

She is particularly proud of the fact that a large safety-net health system like Cook County's was able to attain Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM for both hospitals and all ambulatory clinics.

Maia Hightower

Title: Chief Medical Information Officer

Organization: University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC)

Number of Years in HIT: 2

Previous Positions: Associate Medical Director, Stanford Health Care, University HealthCare Alliance; Internal Medicine Primary Care Provider, Stanford Health Care, Associated Internal Medicine, University Medical Group; Partner Physician, Internal Medicine Primary Care Provider, Associated Internal Medical Group; Physician Advisor/Medical Director, Executive Health Resources; Per Diem Hospitalist Physician, Pediatrics, Rady Children’s Hospital, 2006-2007

Significant Achievements: Hightower is leading 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. She is offering strategy, leadership and implementation of an enterprise wide IT prioritization process leveraging the existing governance structure and existing technology tools while developing an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) service management system for aligning IT services with UIHC enterprise needs.

Impact on HIT: Whether it’s through caring for patients, teaching others healthcare skills, or finding ways to use technology to enhance processes in healthcare environments, Hightower has dedicated herself to alleviating suffering and making life easier for those around her. Her professional interests in clinical informatics, clinical decision making and the evolution of medical care in the digital era have enabled her to help advance the work of clinicians, researchers, educators and learners by providing the health IT tools, processes, and systems they need to thrive in this new digital era of medicine. She teaches and speaks nationally on a range of topics including clinical informatics, diversity in healthcare IT, and building physician resilience.

Liz Johnson

Title: Chief Information Officer, Acute Care Hospitals and Applied Clinical Informatics

Organization: Tenet Healthcare

Years in HIT: 36

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’s acute care hospitals nationwide. Due to her leadership, Tenet Healthcare is now a national model of healthcare reform, using quantifiable data to transform clinical practice to enhance care delivery and improve patient outcomes through the use of EHR systems.

Impact on HIT: Leadership roles include 2017 Board Chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), board member for Health Level 7 (HL7) International, and appointee to the Health Information Technology (HIT) Standards Committee of the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) from 2009 - 2016.

Kyle Johnson

Title: Systems Vice President and CIO

Organization: Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems

Number of Years in HIT: 30-plus

Previous Positions: Vice President and Chief Analytics & Integration Officer, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems; Vice President, Applications & Infrastructure, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems; Vice President, Applications & Data Warehouse, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems; Vice President, Applications, Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems,1998-2006.

Primary Achievements: Johnson is creating data marts, governance, visualization tools, standards in preparation for data warehouse implementation, and has worked on developing the organization's analytics program. She has formulated IT strategy and oversaw execution of the strategy to address organizational priorities.

Impact on HIT: Johnson has spent more than 15 years in the analytics space and prior to her time in the healthcare industry, she understood that the sector would need analytics and data in order to better manage the business and provide high-quality care for patients. She spends much of her time teaching others to take advantage of data analytics to enhance processes in healthcare, seeing this as one of her primary roles for the organization and the industry as a whole. As a female HIT leader, she is excited to be able to help other women grow their careers in HIT and STEM-related fields. Her career philosophy with regard to data and analytics and implementing new systems is to “begin with the end in mind.” She understands that healthcare organizations need to consider up front what reports, dashboards, analytics it needs to be able to derive value from a new system or application that’s being implemented.

Rebecca Kaul

Title: Chief Innovation Officer

Organization: University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston

Years in HIT: 16

Previous roles: Healthcare IT Consultant; Chief Innovation Officer and President of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's (UPMC) Technology Development Center, now known as UPMC Enterprises; President, A-Life Hospital (software vendor); Senior Director, Strategic Business Initiatives at UPMC, 2006-2007; various consulting roles.

Significant Achievements: While she is still getting the MD Anderson Innovation Center off the ground, 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—that coding startup helped UPMC recoup $21 million in annual revenue that otherwise would have been lost. Other innovations in documentation and risk adjustment saved UPMC nearly $30 million a year. She served as a mentor to high school and elementary students from an all-girls school near the UPMC Technology Development Center to generate interest in careers in technology and innovation.

Impact on HIT: At UPMC, Kaul built the Innovation Center from concept to reality, forging partnerships, investing in startups and creating new companies.

Kara Marx

Title: Vice President IT Applications

Organization: Sharp HealthCare

Years in HIT: 25

Previous Positions: Vice President/Chief Information Officer at Methodist Hospital Southern California; Associate Partner at IBM; Senior Account Executive at First Consulting Group; Senior Executive New Business Development/Senior Clinical Specialist at Cerner Corporation; and Registered Nurse.

Significant Achievements: At San Diego’s Sharp HealthCare, Marx has spearheaded management of systems that support organizations operations, including Application Rationalization, Telemedicine, mobile app development, Innovation, ERP & revenue cycle optimization, integration services including FHIR strategy and HIE. She has led optimization with advanced patient care software (acute and ambulatory), medical records/coding, quality/safety, home health/hospice and several other departments.

Impact on HIT: Marx is a strategic, forward-thinking innovation leader with more than 25 years’ experience optimizing the performance of healthcare organizations with HIT including challenging current state and pushing for innovation. Previously at Methodist Hospital Southern California in addition to her work at Sharp HealthCare, she led organization to receive $5 million in Meaningful Use EHR Incentives for Stage 1 and Stage 2. Marx also delivered IT projects on time and within budget, major projects included: new building construction, Telemedicine, EHR, physician & patient portal, wireless infrastructure, clinical documentation, document imaging, HR/Payroll, quality & risk management software, e-Prescribing, as well as Computerized Physician Order Entry with 99 percent compliance rate. She has been a leader is sharing her knowledge with others in teaching at USC, mentoring HIT talent, as well as participating in HIMSS, CHIME and ACHE HIT initiatives.

Sheree McFarland

Title: CIO

Organization: HCA, West Florida Division

Years in HIT: 28

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: McFarland is a classic example of a talented manager who rose through the ranks in her 20-year stint at HCA in its Florida operations. Coming 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. Her responsibilities include strategic planning, budget and project management, technical services, customer support, physician support, security, operations and human resources.

She has achieved Fellow status with CHIME as well as life membership. HCA recognized her with the service excellence award for helping assist with the successful evacuation of 223 patients from Bayonet Point Hospital during a catastrophic lightning hit. Additionally, she has been recognized as one of Tampa Bay Business Journal’s Top 20 CIO’s in 2016 and has been nominated for the Tampa Bay Technology Forum CIO of the Year award.

Impact on HIT: McFarland has led the organizations in her division to implement electronic health records, while managing a wide range of other tasks. She’s able to gain significant support from those involved in implementations with an engaging management style. She also is an involved member of professional associations, particularly CHIME and HIMSS.

McFarland has led the organizations in her division to implement electronic health records, while managing a wide range of other tasks such as complex acquisitions. She’s able to gain significant support from those involved in implementations with an engaging management style. She is committed to building a Culture of Employee Engagement, Excellence and servant leadership and has top scores in employee engagement in HCA.

Pamela McNutt

Title: Senior vice president, CIO

Organization: Methodist Health System

Years in HIT: 38

Previous Positions: Director of information systems, Hermann Hospital; programmer analyst, Whittaker Medicus

Significant Achievements: Helped the organization be an early adopter of electronic health records, as well as gave it experience in implementing patient safety measures and implementing steps to achieve operational efficiency. She leads a team of IT and biomedical professionals who facilitate the use of technology to improve the quality and cost effectiveness of care. Methodist has achieved Meaningful Use Stage 2 for ambulatory and acute care and has been named among the 100 Most Wired hospitals multiple times.

Impact on HIT: An active participant in activities at the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), including playing lead roles on its policy committee. She is one of the leading authorities in the country on dissecting HIT regulations and explaining the impact on providers.

Theresa Meadows

Title: Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer

Organization: Cook Children’s Health Care System

Years in HIT: 24

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 Corporation; Registered Nurse.

Significant Achievements: Meadows has 20-plus years of demonstrated success in managing and implementing of health information technology. At Cook Children’s Health Care System, she developed and implemented a technology strategy to support an integrated delivery network of nine companies including acute care, ambulatory care, home health and health plan. Meadows led a team of 320 members covering areas such as infrastructure, applications, telecommunications, security and program management.

Impact on HIT: One of the impacts Meadows’ has had on HIT would be her recent nomination to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Healthcare Cybersecurity Task Force and given the important role as Co-Chair for the Task Force. Meadows’ was chosen as one of 20 candidates out of 200 nominations. This task force has been given the goal to develop a report to Congress on the unique issues that healthcare faces with the recent increase in cybersecurity threats. This report will include ways the healthcare industry can share cyber threat information. She brings a unique perspective to the Task Force.

She can represent the views of clinicians because she is a registered nurse. She can share unique perspectives because of her technology leadership in a pediatric organization and she is very active in her industry professional organization.

Jamie Nelson

Title: Senior Vice President and CIO

Organization: Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS)

Number of Years in HIT: 34

Previous Positions: Senior Vice President and CIO at Norwalk Hospital; Vice President of Customer Care at Innovatix; Vice President of Outsourcing Services at First Consulting Group; Vice President of Information Systems at New York Presbyterian Hospital; Senior Manager at Ernst & Young; Manager, Ambulatory Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1983-1986.

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. She is responsible for leading clinical and operational transformation initiatives associated with the Epic implementation. Nelson rebuilt the IT function at HSS, nearly doubling the number of staff and creating key leadership positions including CMIO, CTO, CISO and VP Applications and AVP Business Intelligence and Analytics.

Impact on HIT: Nelson’s 34-year career has spanned academic medical center, multi-hospital system and community hospital system settings as well as management consulting and IT outsourcing. At Norwalk Hospital, she helped the organization achieved HIMSS level 6 EMR Adoption Model certification and migrated clinical applications to a remote hosting environment. While at Innovatix, she led the account management team to assist 8,500 members nationwide to use the entire Innovatix portfolio of pharmaceutical, medical supply and equipment contracts. And at First Consulting Group, Nelson directed IT operations at multi-site hospital systems as well as a blood processing manufacturing organization, transitioning employees through effective people management and coaching, and built understanding of short-term and long-term changes for outsourced employees. She also led health outsourcing accounts, designing complete IT transformations to upgrade entire technological architectures and implementing new hospital information systems. And at New York Presbyterian Hospital System, Nelson directed all financial and patient management/accounts receivable technologies for a $2 billion annual revenue NYPH system, and managed systems related to patient management, patient billing, universal patient index, home care, optical imaging, decision support, payroll, general ledger, accounts payable, materials management, human resources, time/attendance, interface engine and managed care systems for all hospitals in the healthcare system.

Doris Peek

Title: SVP, Chief Information Officer

Organization: Broward Health

Years in HIT: 10+

Previous Positions: Medical technologist in the clinical laboratory at Angel Community Hospital in Franklin, N.C.; CIO, Catholic Healthcare East; Various positions, Emory University and Grady Hospital, Gwinnett County Hospital and North Fulton Medical, as well as Ernst & Young.

Significant Achievements: She has moved Broward Health from level 2 on the HIMSS Analytics scale of EHR adoption to a stage 6 in seven years, and the organization attested for EHR meaningful use Stages 1 and 2. Along the way came initiatives to support accountable care and business intelligence. Peek in the past year picked up marketing, communications, physician relations and community outreach responsibilities.

But it was Doris’ past experience at Catholic Health East (CHE) in South Florida that prepared her for the complexity of Broward Health. As a regional CIO of CHE, Peek standardized ERP, EMR and patient accounting systems, implemented standardized practice management system supporting more than 125 employed physician practices, designed specialized cardiac system requirements necessary to support a heart and vascular center, and implemented clinical trial documentation and monitoring software required to support research, next-generation chemotherapy, radiation oncology and pharmacological infusion for a cancer center.

As Catholic Health East prepared Peek for Broward Health, so did Ernst & Young prepare her for Catholic Health. She credits Lewis Redd, a partner in the health information systems division for mentoring her because of the opportunities he provided her. “Mr. Redd mentored me and helped me change from a consultant to an executor and a strong transformational change leader.” Other stops along the way included Emory University and Grady Hospital, Gwinnett County Hospital, North Fulton Medical Center, HBO (McKesson) and Gerber Ally.

Impact on HIT: Her greatest contribution, she believes, is not doing IT, but leading change management. “IT requires change through people and I mentored young leaders to become transformational leaders instead of technology managers.”

Jayashree Raman

Title: Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer

Organization: Cooper University Health Care, Camden, N.J.

Years in HIT: 34

Previous roles: VP of Healthcare Strategy and CIO, Stanley Healthcare Solutions; VP and CIO, The Reading Hospital and Medical Center, Reading, Pa.; Director of Technical Operations, Reading Hospital; Programmer and Technical Support, Sacred Heart Hospital, Allentown, Pa., 1979-1983

Primary achievements: Raman established the data center at Reading Hospital and helped that facility attain Level 6 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model. She made Stanley Healthcare Solutions' EMEA operations profitable in four months. Raman rolled out Epic Systems EMRs to all of Cooper University Health Care's ambulatory sites and Epic revenue-cycle management technology to the entire enterprise.

Impact on HIT: Prior to bringing Raman on board, Cooper turned on an inpatient EMR in plenty of time to meet Stage 1 Meaningful Use requirements and was an early adopter of computerized physician order entry. Since Raman joined, the evolution has continued; she tells her staff that she does not want to see technology that has a "shelf life." Rather, it must be flexible to adapt to changing business and clinical needs. Shortly after Raman joined Cooper, the New Jersey organization suffered more than 200 IT outages in a six-month period. In 2015, Raman forged a partnership with Comcast Business to revamp the health system's entire IT infrastructure.

Gabriela Ramirez-Garnica

Title: Corporate Director, Enterprise Analytics, Clinical Analysis and Outcomes

Organization: Orlando Health

Number of Years in HIT: 16

Previous Positions: Corporate Director, Enterprise Analytics, Clinical Analysis and Outcomes, Orlando Health; Corporate Director, Clinical Analysis and Outcomes, Orlando Health; Director, Nemours Clinical Management Program, Nemours Clinical Management Program, Nemours; Associate Director, Nemours Clinical Management, Nemours; Epidemiologist, Nemours, 1997-2002

Significant Achievements: Ramirez-Garnica leads Orlando Health’s corporate wide Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) project. She is accountable to deliver “one source of truth” for accurate information reporting, mining and analysis that spans clinical, financial, operations and research data as well as adoption of best-practice analytics methods, techniques and technology. As the leader of Orlando Health’s core team of data definition and analytics experts, she is charged with optimizing the organization’s abilities to capture, retain and, most importantly, use information.

She has played an important role in improving care through the use of data analytics at Orlando Health, working with others in the organization to improve care for certain key positions.

Impact on HIT: Because of her work in analytics and gathering relevant data from across the organization, Orlando Health has achieved significant improvements in reducing common issues, such as early deliveries, and otherwise reducing patient risks.

Stephanie L. Reel

Title: Senior Vice President, Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer; Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Sciences Informatics

Organization: The Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore

Years in HIT: 36/27 years at current organization in progressive roles

Previous Responsibilities: Director of IT, Small Maryland Hospital; Director of IT, Johns Hopkins Hospital, John Hopkins Health System; CIO, Johns Hopkins Hospital, John Hopkins Health System; CIO, Johns Hopkins University, 1999.

Significant Achievements: Reel has worked on data center, infrastructure and staff consolidations; design and deployment of shared-service centers; resource planning activities for the enterprise, with focus on innovative investments. Other achievements include: development and implementation of Epic and Cerner, fully integrated clinical solutions, in support of patient care and research across much of the enterprise; development and implementation of an integrated student information system for the eight divisions of the University; implementation and support of SAP ERP applications across the Johns Hopkins Health System and the Johns Hopkins University; development and implementation of an enterprise-wide governance structure; and achievement of significant enhancements in electronically enhanced learning technologies, leading to the creation of web-enabled courseware.

Impact on HIT: With the bulk of her 36-year career spent in HIT, Reel has lived, breathed and fueled a technology evolution across Johns Hopkins Medicine. In successfully merging the technology requirements of two different institutions/cultures--Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System--the HIT industry can learn from Reel’s unique execution model comprising collaboration, inclusiveness and efficient consolidation.

From her early involvement with the broad deployment of a self-developed electronic health record system in the 1990s, which was recognized by The Smithsonian Institution for its innovation, to her leadership over a continuous evolution of HIT program advancements, Reel has advanced the industry’s best interests.

Among the numerous examples of Reel’s ability to foster a technology evolution across Johns Hopkins Medicine, both at Johns Hopkins University and The Johns Hopkins Hospital, are a data center/mainframe consolidation, creation of an access management system, revenue cycle systems, clinical information systems, and analytical tools to track quality, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and improve decision support. Under Reel’s leadership, the organization also supports sustainability and “green data center” solutions, state-wide network initiatives allowing the organization to share bandwidth and dark fiber infrastructure, off-shore development for selected projects and a state-wide regional patient record. Her unified approach to all hardware/software/service negotiations continues to ensure that each institution benefits from every transaction.

Donna Roach

Title: CIO

Organization: Via Christi Health

Years in HIT: 32

Previous Positions: CIO, Ascension Health; VP Information Technology, CIO, Bronson Healthcare Group; Assistant Professor, Rush University Medical Center; CIO, HCISC; CIO, VP, Information Services, Condell Medical Center; Director of Information Services, Foote Health System; Regional Director of Information Services, Hinsdale Hospital; Regional Director of Information Services, Adventist Health System; Director of Information Services, Resurrection Health Care; Manager of Information Services, Central DuPage Hospital; Manager of Customer Service, Rush University Medical Center.

Significant Achievements: In her current role, Roach is responsible for the information technology department and IT strategy at twelve hospitals and 200 plus ambulatory sites in Kansas. Now, in a changing reimbursement environment, the organization is implementing a standard clinical record throughout Ascension’s network, population health management and risk analytics, as well as enterprise resource planning applications.

Impact on HIT: In a variety of settings, Roach has sought to use IT to improve care while reducing manual, repetitive tasks for clinicians. In recent years, she’s taken on more leadership roles within industry organizations, particularly CHIME and HIMSS. She holds a CHCIO and is a Felllow within HIMSS.

Betty Jo Rocchio

Title: Vice President, Perioperative Performance Acceleration

Organization: Mercy

Years in HIT: 12

Previous Responsibilities: 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, 2005-2008

Significant Achievements: Rocchio designed and implemented a system-wide preference card reorganization and cleanup with an automated, centralized maintenance process that produced savings of $1.2 million. She created a system-wide Perioperative Business Dashboard that uses productivity metrics (first case on-time starts, OR utilization, block utilization, room and physician turnover time) to provide transparency to financial, efficiency, cost-per-case data, and outcome measures on the Mercy Intranet. Utilization of the dashboard has saved $25.3 million over three years in cost-per-case across the Mercy System. She implemented a system-wide policy development initiative to increase standardization, improve quality outcomes, and assist front-line teams with education and ease of implementation.

Impact on HIT: Throughout her career and at every post, Rocchio has complemented and bolstered her experience as a transformative surgical services executive with the successful management of HIT projects. This unique ability to manage both the business and clinical aspects using HIT as an enabler has had a profound influence within the hospitals in which she has served. In general, her track record over the years, which includes management of anesthesia, pre-admission testing, pre-operative area, operating room, post anesthesia care unit, sterile processing, and endoscopy at both an individual hospital and system level, lends itself naturally to a vision of HIT-related excellence.

In particular, her HIT-related strategic plans have often spoke to accountability; whether creating a perioperative system that provides transparency to financial and case-related detail, a financial budgeting template for FTE’s that requires that consistent principles will be applied across the hospital system, or the implementation of a new process for sponge counting across hospitals called “Accountable Executive,” Rocchio has adopted HIT as an enabler to clinical quality and efficiencies.

Rocchio’s overall HIT strategy also includes patient safety; from the development and management of the successful conversion of the paper OR record to an electronic record using the ORSOS Web Periop product, the implementation of safety guidelines and supported funding for all centrally monitored beds that included telemetry and pulse oximetry, to the execution of a major electronic health record system in surgical services, Rocchio has focused on a standardized approach to improve quality outcomes.

Pamela Saechow

Title: Senior Vice President, Information Services

Organization: NYC Health + Hospitals, New York

Years in HIT: 19

Previous roles: Director of Implementation and Project Management Office, Sutter Health, Sacramento, Calif.; Acute Care Product Manager, Sutter Health; Senior Project Manager, Sutter Health; Senior Applications Analyst, Sutter Health; Pharmacy Technician, Sutter Health, 1992-1998.

Significant Achievements: Saechow led a successful Epic EHR implementation at Sutter Health, which operates 26 hospitals and 250 medical offices in Northern California. She had a strategic role in the design and planning of several replacement Sutter hospitals and clinics. She also helped Sutter achieve Meaningful Use, meet the ICD-10 compliance deadline and reach Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model.

Impact on HIT: Saechow came into the high-profile job after years of EHR failure at the health system drew the ire of City Hall and the famously tough New York City media. The initial Epic implementation failed in no small part because political and IT leaders before Saechow pushed for quick EHR adoption without allowing clinical teams to go through the necessary workflow redesign. Saechow changed the culture to prioritize workflow over technology and to emphasize teamwork and collaboration.

Her insistence of having data and evidence rather than emotions drive decisions led to successful go-lives at the first three hospitals that have turned Epic back on — clinical as well as financial systems — and drew praise from the Joint Commission. Clinician satisfaction is up and the public health system now has a working patient portal. At the low-rated NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney Island facility in Brooklyn, electronic prescribing rates soared from less than 30 percent to nearly 99 percent within days of go-live in 2016. Medication reconciliation has been automated. Revenue has increased because the EHR captures charges that previously had been lost.

Pat Skarulis

Title: CIO

Organization: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Years in HIT: 27

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 came to Rush Presbyterian Medical Center in 1990, and in 11 years, led the organization through early implementations of clinical systems, laying the foundation for electronic health records. While at Rush, she served as an assistant professor in the Rush University master’s degree program in health systems management. Moving to Sloan-Kettering, Skarulis helped engage physicians in a variety of IT initiatives that enabled better care and research.

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.

Terri Steinberg, MD

Title: Chief Health Information Officer and Vice President for Population Health Informatics

Organization: Christiana Care Health System

Number of Years in HIT: 25

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

Significant Achievements: On behalf of Christiana Care Health System, Steinberg’s team was awarded a Health Care Innovation grant to implement a novel IT integration architecture to support a predictive analytic model based on a comprehensive patient data set, regardless of the location for the data generation. Steinberg is actively involved in the Delaware Health Information Network, the first state-wide health information exchange, and serves as a member of the board of directors of that organization. Her experience includes tenure at Siemens Medical Solution where she participated in the early development of the Soarian clinical suite of applications. She earned her medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed her Residency at the State University of New York School of Medicine at Stony Brook, and earned an MBA from Jones University, as well as holds a certification in Internal Medicine from the American Board of Internal Medicine and a subspecialty certification in Clinical Informatics from the American Board of Preventive Medicine.

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, and on the positive impact of technology on safe clinical practice. Steinberg has consulted on technology matters for the Institute for Safe Medical Practice and has worked with many hospitals and healthcare organizations as they endeavor to implement CPOE and advanced clinical systems.

Carol Steltenkamp, MD

Title: Chief Medical Information Officer

Organization: University of Kentucky HealthCare

Previous responsibilities: Chair Emeritus, HIMSS Board of Directors; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kentucky College of Medicine; Director, Kentucky Regional Extension Center; Chief Medical Information Officer, University of Kentucky HealthCare; Chair, HIMSS Board of Directors (Vice Chair HIMSS North America 2013/2014); Chair, Kentucky eHealth Network Board

Significant Achievements: She is the chairperson of the Kentucky eHealth Network Board, which successfully launched and maintains the Kentucky Health Information Exchange (KHIE). Steltenkamp is the primary Investigator of over $10 million in HIT related grant funding including the foundational grant from HHS/ONC establishing the Kentucky Regional Extension Center. She led UK HealthCare (a $1.5 billion academic medical center) transition to an all-electronic health record across all inpatient and ambulatory sites.

Impact on HIT: Steltenkamp began her career in HIT rather innocently. After having practiced pediatrics in a private practice setting, she returned to academic medicine at the University of Kentucky. A life-long learner, Steltenkamp went back to school and received her MBA. It was during those studies that she was exposed to Information Technology and her passion for its use in health care was ignited. As the first CMIO at the University of Kentucky, she began with the early selection and ultimately the implementation of an electronic health record across the clinical enterprise at her organization. Steltenkamp then moved beyond her organization, becoming a leader for HIT in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. She was named the chair of the Kentucky eHealth Board, a position that she still holds today.

Working with colleagues across the Commonwealth, she has secured millions of dollars in grant funding in support of HIT efforts. One such effort was the initial funding for the Kentucky Regional Extension Center (REC). This now financially viable organization has assisted thousands of clinicians and 40 percent of the acute care hospitals in Kentucky in reaching Meaningful Use. The Kentucky REC scope of work has expanded to include a complete set of offerings for use when partnering with providers to transform the provision of patient care.

Steltenkamp has been an active volunteer member of the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) for many years. She has served the organization and its members in various ways including membership on the Personal Health Records Steering Committee, the Annual Conference Education Committee and the Physician Committee. Carol was elected to the HIMSS North America Board of Directors, serving as the Vice Chair in 2013-2014. She is the immediate past Chair of the HIMSS (International) Board of Directors. These opportunities have allowed her to interact with health care leaders throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Joanne Sunquist

Title: Senior Vice President/CIO

Organization: HealthEast Care System

Years in HIT: 21

Previous Positions: CIO, Hennepin County Medical Center; Vice President of Information Services, Allina Health; Manager, Andersen Consulting.

Significant Achievements: Coming to HealthEast in 2013, Sunquist has led an enterprise wide implementation of electronic health records, and it revamped its overall core vendor strategy. She was able to build off her experiences at Hennepin County Medical Center, which implemented an EHR system and ultimately achieved Stage 7 on the HIMSS EMRAM adoption scale. She is also a leader in the implementation of LEAN at HealthEast, and recently achieved LEAN Bronze certification.

Impact on HIT: Sunquist has been able to draw upon her early career as a nurse and nursing administration to understand the psyche of clinicians who use systems in care settings. An active member of CHIME, she was on the CHIME board of trustees from 2007 to 2010, serving in the role of chair in 2009. She has also served in Minnesota as a member of the e-Health Advisory committee and the Minnesota Epic User Group board.

Deanna Wise

Title: EVP, Chief Information Officer

Organization: Dignity Health

Previous Positions: SVP and CIO, Vanguard Health System; CIO, Maricopa Integrated Health Systems; Director of Application, 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 system across a delivery system spanning more than 40 hospitals. So far, 31 hospitals have reached Stage 6 of HIMSS Analytics’ model of EHR adoption. Project completion is expected in 2017.

Impact on HIT: Wise was in the life insurance business building applications but not getting much customer interaction, which she enjoyed. An opportunity came to work as an application analyst at Home Hospital in Lafayette, Ind., where she spent a year and then moved to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, serving for eight years and becoming director of applications.

At St. Vincent, Wise got the toughest customers and learned the value of building strong customer relationships. “Your analytical skills are important, but you need to listen to customers then go back to the IT team and vendors to fulfill the request and deliver what’s expected.” Wise remembers the lab director was very demanding and didn’t see IT as capable of delivering, so she looked for small things to prove she was competent. She knew it worked when the director made her a baby blanket.

During a 22-year career, she moved to Maricopa Integrated Health System, becoming a CIO for the first time and in-sourcing the entire IT department while cutting costs and increasing customer satisfaction. She then joined Vanguard Health Systems as VP and CIO.

Since May 2011, Wise has been EVP and CIO at Dignity Health. Her largest achievement has been developing the strategy and roadmap for implementing the Cerner EHR across a delivery system spanning more than 40 hospitals. So far, 32 hospitals have reached Stage 6 of HIMSS Analytics’ model of EHR adoption. Project completion is expected in 2017.