The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) announced the 2018 awardees of HIMSS’ Most Influential Women in Health IT. According to a post by Carla Smith, executive vice president, HIMSS North America, this year, judges chose four awardees out of more than 100 applications received.
The four awardees are Ann O’Brien, R.N., Judy Murphy, R.N., Jessica Kahn and Vice Admiral Raquel C. Bono.
O’Brien is currently director of clinical informatics at Kaiser Permanente Information Technology. According to HIMSS, O’Brien drives digital innovations that enhance the patient/consumer experience within the context of value-driven care, including leading collaboration efforts in the development of a Nursing Information Model Process to enable data capture, re-use and sharing between organizations and disparate electronic health records (EHRs). “Ann is a tireless champion of nurses, mentoring many emerging clinical informaticists. She also serves on the National Quality Forum’s Patient Safety Steering Committee; was selected as an Executive Nurse Fellow for Robert Wood Johnson and was elected by the Department of Health & Human Services for the Driving Quality Improvement Collaborative.
Murphy serves as chief nursing officer (CNO) at IBM Global Healthcare, and a member of IBM’s Industry Academy. She has a long-standing reputation of patient advocacy and maintaining a “patient-centric” point of view, and approaches her work with unyielding energy as well as passion and commitment to the healthcare transformation enabled by technology. She previously served as CNO and Deputy National Coordinator for Programs and Policy at the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). She also participated in the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS), Health IT Policy Committee, and Health IT Standards Committee.
Kahn is the director for Medicaid’s Data and Systems Group and in this role she oversaw approximately $5 billion in annual federal spending for state Medicaid IT and data projects. Through her leadership of the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, over 202,000 providers received $12 billion+ in incentive payments to adopt, implement, upgrade and meaningfully use federally-certified EHR systems, as of July 2017. According to HIMSS, recently, the US Public Health Commissioned Corps honored Jessica as the first speaker in a new series focused on the 400+ women in the Corps in which she shared tips and lessons learned as a female healthcare executive. In addition, Kahn has been recognized for her national leadership, willingness to collaborate, and steadfast support for health IT adoption across the country.
Since her appointment to lead the Defense Health Agency (DHA), Vice Admiral Bono has spearheaded a number of strategic health information technology initiatives for the Military Health System (MHS), initiatives that are ensuring the readiness of 1.4 million military forces worldwide. These efforts also create a comprehensive health IT infrastructure that provides a secure and reliable backbone for both military and private sector health care delivery around the world. Vice Admiral Bono is also singularly responsible for a number of enterprise-shared services, one of which is health IT, delivered across the Army, Navy, and Air Force; Geographic Combatant Commands (Europe, Middle East, Africa, Pacific Region, South and Latin America, and the North American region); as well as specific functional commands leading nuclear forces, special operations, transportation and cybersecurity, according to HIMSS.
The intent of the award is to recognize women HIT leaders with an ongoing commitment to harnessing the power of information and technology to positively transform health and healthcare; active leadership in support of strategic initiatives of her organization; advancing the best use of IT within communities and health settings; thinking outside of the box; and, serving as a mentor to the next generation.
HIMSS is hosting a complimentary Women in Health IT roundtable webinar on January 26, at 11 a.m. ET. More information about the webinar as well as the Women’s Reception during HIMSS18 can be found here.
