The HIMSS18 Women in Health IT roundtable convened March 7 to explore ways on how best to advance the role of women who work in healthcare information technology. The panel, the third gathering since the initiative launched at HIMSS16, included this year’s awardees as well as women who received the designation in previous years.
In January 2018, HIMSS released research that showed a widening compensation gap between men and women. Moreover, the disparity appears at all levels, hitting female IT executives the most.
The conversation focused on themes around the importance of a gender-diverse workforce and how to achieve pay parity in a setting where women are still earning less than men doing the same work.
Participants included HIMSS Executive President Carla Smith, this year’s honorees Ann O’Brien, RN; Jessica Kahn, Senior Expert, McKinsey and Company; Judy Murphy, Chief Nursing Officer, IBM Global Healthcare; and Vice Admiral Raquel C. Bono, MD, Director of Defense Health Agency.
[Also: Meet the 2018 Most Influential Women in Health IT Awardees]
Other participants included Christina Carabello, Director of Healthcare Transformation at Get Real Health; Lisa Stump, CIO at Yale New Haven Health System, both HIMSS17 honorees.
Nancy Green, Global Practice Lead, Healthcare, at Verizon and Dana Alexander, Executive Director Health Advisory at EY, sponsors of the program, also contributed to the conversation.
The roundtable agreed the two topics they felt were most important were:
- Men, as well as women, should be recruited to help achieve parity.
- Diversity should not be limited to gender, but also encompass other dimensions, such as bringing to healthcare more diversity in general to include participants of all origins, color and economic stratum.
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Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com
