In health IT, it’s a man’s world. Although women account for nearly half of the U.S. labor force, they hold only a paltry 25 percent of senior health IT roles nationwide. However, women leaders account for 45 percent of HIMSS Analytics Stage 6 hospitals and 48 percent of Stage 7 hospitals. They may be small in number, but they have proven mighty in strength.
Jessica Grosset is the vice chair for IT operations and infrastructure, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Under Grosset’s leadership, Mayo Clinic went chartless in 2005 and filmless a year later. Mayo Clinic has seen savings of $40 million from automation of basic EHR functions. Grosset and her team’s efforts earned the clinic Stage 7 HIMSS EMRAM status.
Jayne Bassler is CIO and senior vice president at the 2,247-bed Florida Hospital. Bassler and her team have reached Stage 6 and 7 status on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM for four hospitals. Under her leadership Florida Hospital has been named one of the 'Most Wired' hospitals in the nation by Hospitals and Health Networks.
Susan Heichert is the CIO and senior vice president of the 11-hospital Allina Health, Minneapolis. Heichert, who has worked in IT for 30 years now, says her biggest accomplishment has been the project where they extended Allina's EHR to other community hospitals and clinics outside Allina. She and her team's efforts have earned Allina a Stage 6 Award on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM.
Julie Vilardi, RN, executive director, strategic projects and clinical informatics at Kaiser Permanente, has oversight of the IT side of meaningful use and other innovative projects that cross the IT and clinical areas of Kaiser Permanente. Vilardi was involved in the organizational change management efforts that preceded the implementation Kaiser Permanente's EMR, KP HealthConnect.
Sue Schade is CIO at University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers and former CIO of Brigham and Women's. Schade joined the health system to oversee the recent launch of a new electronic health record system. Under Schade's leadership at Brigham and Women's, the hospital achieved Stage 6 on HIMSS EMRAM.
Patricia Skarulis, vice president and CIO of the 470-bed Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, was named the 2008 HIMSS CIO of the Year, and she and her team oversee one of the nation's largest Web-based data warehouses, containing the clinical records of more than 1.25 million patients. Under Skarulis' leadership, the center was listed among the ‘Most Wired’ hospitals in the country.
Pamela Arora, CIO at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, and her team of some 350 IT staff have achieved Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model – putting the center among only 1.9 percent of U.S. hospitals earning this distinction.
Florence Chang, former senior vice president and CIO of MultiCare Health System, Tacoma, Wash. MultiCare Health System reached Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM scale under the leadership of Chang, whose efforts also earned the system a Davies Award of Excellence in 2009. Chang was promoted to executive vice president of MultiCare in October 2012.
Denni McColm, CIO, Citizens Memorial Hospital, Bolivar, Mo. Under McColm’s leadership, the 76-bed Citizens Memorial Hospital became the first rural hospital to achieve Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics EMRAM scale. Hospitals & Health Networks listed Citizens Memorial as one the nation’s ‘Most Wired’ hospitals.
Dee Cantrell, RN, CIO at Emory Healthcare, is the first female and the first nurse to serve in this role. Cantrell spearheaded the implementation of Emory's EHR, achieving HIMSS Stage 6 in 2010. In 2012, she received the CIO of the Year Award from the Georgia CIO Leadership Association. She and her team have also implemented film-less clinical imaging services and an enterprise-wide global patient registration.
