Norma Tirado | Lakeland HealthCare
Tirado is the chief information officer and vice president of both IT and human resources at the four-hospital Lakeland HealthCare in Michigan. She and her team are responsible for Lakeland hospitals and three ambulatory clinics achieving Stage 7 certification last November, an accomplishment that was attained in less than three years from the initial EHR rollout. "We have a team that is laser-focused in producing better patient outcomes; they would not accept anything less," said Tirado in a press statement. After initial EHR implementation, under Tirado, the health system was able to save $5 million in the first year, not even counting EHR incentive payments.
Jessica Grosset | Mayo Clinic
Jessica Grosset is the chair for IT operations and infrastructure at Mayo Clinic in 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. Mayo clinical staff now use iPads and iPhones with custom-built applications on them to view lab results, reports and images. Grosset and her team’s efforts earned the clinic Stage 7 HIMSS EMRAM status.
Pamela Arora | Children's Medical Center Dallas
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 2.2 percent of U.S. hospitals earning this distinction. Under Arora's leadership, Children's Medical Center Dallas also received the prestigious Davies Enterprise Award last year recognizing excellence in health IT implementation.
Joanne Sunquist | HealthEast Care System
Joanne Sunquist is the SVP and CIO at the four-hospital HealthEast Care System in Minnesota. Under her leadership together with the CMIO Brian Patty, MD, the healthcare system rolled out a five-year $135 million budget to implement a new Epic EHR back in December 2012. St. John's Hospital has already earned Stage 6 distinction.
Susan Heichert | Allina Health
Susan Heichert is the CIO and senior vice president of the 12-hospital Allina Health in 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.
Patricia Skarulis | Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Patricia Skarulis, vice president and CIO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, was named the 2008 HIMSS CIO of the Year and earned the 2014 Healthcare IT News HIT Men and Women Award. 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.
Marianne James | Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Marianne James is the CIO of the 598-bed Cincinnati Children's Hospital. In January, under James' leadership, the hospital in addition to 14 of its associated ambulatory clinics achieved Stage 7 HIMSS Analytics status. Her efforts led to the hospital earning a Davies Organization Award back in 2003, recognizing the importance of a fully integrated IT platform.
Lucia Savage | ONC
Lucia Savage in October was named the next chief privacy officer at the the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. Savage, who has served on the governance board for CMS' multi-payer claims project, has also done work with health information exchanges and payers. She previously served in the role of senior associate general counsel at UnitedHealthcare.
Laishy Williams-Carlson | Bon Secours Health System
Laishy Williams-Carlson is the VP and CIO at the 19-hospital Bon Secours Health System. Under her leadership, the health system was one of the first to earn Stage 7 ambulatory status for 107 providers across 31 practices back in 2013. Then, this January, four Bon Secours hospitals also achieved Stage 7 status. She has spearheaded efforts to role out an Epic EHR across 14 Bon Secours hospitals since 2011.
Phyllis Teater | Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Phyllis Teater is the associate vice president and chief information officer at the six-hospital Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. She has served as CIO since 2010 and has been at the organization for more than 20 years now, starting as a program analyst. Under Teater's leadership, all six hospitals and 263 clinics have attained the Stage 7 HIMSS Analytics distinction. Teater also spearheaded a massive Epic rollout at the hospitals back in 2012, a project dubbed the "Big Bang." She has served as co-director at the Center for IT Innovations in Healthcare.
Mary Beth Mitchell |
Mary Beth Mitchell, RN, is the chief nursing informatics officer at the 25-hospital Texas Health Resources. Mitchell oversees the nursing adoption, utilization and optimization of the electronic health record. Under her leadership, together with the CIO, Texas Health was awarded the prestigious 2013 Davies Award of Excellence recognizing their use of health information technology. The health system has also achieved Stage 7 status for 11 of its hospitals.
Iliana Peters | OCR
Iliana Peters serves in the role of senior advisor for HIPAA compliance and enforcement at HHS' Office for Civil Rights. In this capacity, Peters acts as the national lead for OCR enforcement of the HIPAA rules and also works with the division's 10 regional offices to foster compliance with the rules. In her role, Peters also supports other OCR policy and outreach initiatives, including rule makings, compliance with other federal agencies and training.
Kathryn Marchesini | ONC
