Charles Christian, longtime chief information officer at Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, Ind., is joining the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), the nation’s largest HIE, as vice president of technology and engagement.
Christian, who was Good Samaritan’s CIO for 26 years, started collaborating with IHIE in 2010. Good Samaritan became one of the first 20 hospitals in the state to join the IHIE network. The hospital network has since grown to over 100. Launched in 2004, IHIE provides the nation’s largest implementation of clinical results delivery in the country (DOCS4DOCS Service). It also supports the Indiana Network for Patient Care, a clinical data repository accessed via IHIE’s CareWeb application. (IHIE recently launched a redesigned and enhanced version of CareWeb, which provides a secure and robust view of the care patients receive regardless of location and hospital system.)
“Chuck has a tremendous depth of experience helping healthcare organizations leverage IT to support the needs of providers and to improve patient care,” said John Kansky, IHIE president and CEO, in a prepared statement. “He is highly respected within the industry and brings with him extensive knowledge of public policy processes and working relationships with government and healthcare IT leaders at the local, state and national level.”
Christian is a charter member and 2015 Board of Trustees Chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), and served as Chairman of the Board of Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in 2008. In 2010, Christian was recognized by CHIME and HIMSS with the industry’s most prestigious honor: the John E. Gall Jr., CIO of the Year Award. He was recently honored by the Indiana Chapter of HIMSS with an award in his name: the Charles E. Christian Leadership Award.
