Pam Arlotto has a 30-year track record as a thought leader in the health IT industry. Her work with HIMSS recast the organization's purpose and structure to combine the disciplines of systems engineering and information technology to define methodologies on health IT value realization. Arlotto served as president of the HIMSS Board in 1987 and co-authored the 2003 HIMSS Book of the Year, Return on Investment: Maximizing the Value of Healthcare Information Technology, as well as Beyond Return on Investment: Expanding the Value of Healthcare Information Technology. As president and CEO of Atlanta based Maestro Strategies, LLC, she combines her experience in strategic planning, organizational design, systems engineering and process transformation with information technology expertise to create a firm with a unique focus on value improvement, clinical integration and innovation. Arlotto has served as a volunteer, consultant, writer, professor, speaker, board member and advisor to individuals and organizations across the healthcare industry.
Mark Tepping has been very active regionally and nationally promoting healthcare management engineering and clinical information systems. Tepping was an active participant in the development of the Value Improvement Program and helped build a national database of management-engineered standards for a variety of hospital functions. He was also responsible for developing the Connecticut Syndromic Surveillance database system used by the state health department to identify and track diseases as they travel through the state. Tepping has made several lasting contributions to HIMSS including developing the HIMSS chapter model and initiating the HIMSS salary survey and HIMSS mentoring program. Tepping was one of the original 31 fellows. He has been a periodic speaker at several universities, faculty at Yale Medical School, and co-authored the HIMSS publication, Establishing an In-House Management Engineering Program. Tepping served on the HIMSS Board from 1979 to 1981. He is now serves as executive vice president for Business Development at CDS, LLC in New Haven, Conn.
Dennis L'Heureux served on the HIMSS Board twice -- first in the 1980s, and again, in 1990 through his term as president in 1992. He was the first president of the New England chapter of HIMSS, co-chaired the first micro-computer special interest group (IS Committee) in 1984, and has been actively involved in CHIME since its inauguration in 1992. L'Heureux was one of the first CIOs in healthcare as he held the title at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., as far back as 1981. He is now senior vice president and CIO at Rockford Health System in Illinois, which has been recognized as a Most Wired healthcare provider and received a Best in Class Award for PACS implementation at Computerworld's 7th Annual IT Leaders Conference. L'Heureux was named to Computerworld's Premier 100 CIOs in 2006.
In 1980, Bill Childs introduced the first journal dedicated to the field of health IT: Computers in Healthcare. He founded two subsequent publications: Health Management Technology and Healthcare Informatics. The introduction of a publication dedicated to health IT helped establish the importance of individuals who focused on IT-related issues in healthcare. The journal also helped legitimize the director of data processing position and advance chief information officers in healthcare. Childs was also one of the early pioneers at El Camino Hospital in California and in the informatics field. He was a founder of the first Clinical Information Systems Company at Lockheed in the late 1960s, later known as TDS and E7000. Childs attended his first Annual HIMSS Conference in 1968, and in 43 years, he has not missed one since. He is currently the vice president of national sales and ambassador for Vitalize Consulting Solutions Inc, Kennett Square, Penn.
Peter Ryerson served on the HIMSS Board in 1979, and again in 1983 through his term as president in 1985. As president, an endowment fund was first established for scholarships. Ryerson also chaired the international cost accounting committee. Ryerson led the founding of the Delaware Valley chapter of HIMSS in 1974, and received the HIMSS Distinguished Fellows Service award in 2002. He continues to be involved in HIMSS by participating on the Foundation Fundraising committee and in other capacities. Ryerson has presented numerous educational seminars and authored many articles on topics relating to revenue enhancement, operations performance and strategic planning for healthcare organizations. For more than 20 years, Ryerson has been president of his own consulting firm, Ryerson Healthcare Consultants, LLC in Akron, Ohio.
Robert Gunn is a Life Fellow member of HIMSS. He served on the HIMSS Board beginning in 1984 and as president in 1986, the year HMSS became HIMSS to include information systems and telecommunications professionals. Gunn began his career as director of management engineering at Sinai Hospital in Detroit. He managed his own consulting firm for nearly 20 years and worked with a number of high-profile clients. Gunn is currently president of BG Consulting in Arlington, Texas.
Nancy Aldrich is a recognized authority on the development of professional telecommunications services in healthcare through management and technology. Aldrich was the president of the Telecommunications Management Corp. beginning in 1979, and was a founder and chair of the New England Hospital Telecommunications Association, which later merged with HIMSS. Not only was she the first telecommunications professional to be elected to the HIMSS Board in 1992, she was the first woman to lead the Society as president from 1995-1996. For the last eight years of her career, Aldrich was the director of telecommunications for St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, Mass. Aldrich is now retired.
Richard Correll's vision and leadership have been instrumental in establishing information technology leadership in the healthcare industry. He championed the emergence of the chief information officer in healthcare. While serving as president-elect of the HIMSS Board in 1986, Correll led strategic planning, which identified the need for a professional Society dedicated to healthcare information systems professionals. He recommended to the Board the name of the Society be changed from HMSS to HIMSS in order to encourage CIOs and their staff to join with the existing management engineering members in order to tackle the advancement of IT and process improvement together. The Board agreed and asked Correll to transition from his Board role to become director of the newly formed Center for Healthcare Information Management (CHIM) directing funds donated by vendors and consultants in support of HIMSS’ growth. In 1991, the HIMSS Board endorsed the formation of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), and Correll became the organization’s president and CEO -- a position he presently holds.
Robert Durej has over 30 years of consulting and executive management experience in the healthcare industry. He has held information systems and management engineering leadership and staff roles at consulting firms, multi-hospital systems and medical centers. Durej served as president of the HIMSS Board in 1983, the year the first formal, long-term plan was developed. He has served on a number of committees and work groups for HIMSS. Besides holding a Master of Science degree in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he has earned key professional certifications, including CPHIMS and PMP. Durej is principle of Productivity Leadership Group Inc., Pacific Palisades, Calif.
During the 1981 Annual HIMSS Conference, Ned Simpson promoted a platform identified with the question, "Who wants to be Moses?", to lead healthcare to the promised land of information systems. This platform served as the foundation to explore the importance of management and clinical information systems in healthcare, which led to a more formal identity for the healthcare professional focused on information systems. As president of the HIMSS Board in 1989, Simpson broadened the Society to be more inclusive of management engineering, IT and telecommunications. Simpson is currently the healthcare systems program director at AdvanTech Inc. in Annapolis, Md.
