Cal eConnect Names Interim CEO

Cal eConnect, the nonprofit organization that serves as California’s governance entity for health information exchange, has appointed one of its own board members as an interim CEO after former CEO Carladenise Edwards announced in August 2011 she would step down for personal reasons after 14 months in the position.

Appointed as interim CEO is Laura Landry, who previously served as executive director of the Western Health Information Network (WHIN), a not-for-profit community benefit corporation established in 2003 as a health information organization to fill the need for Southern California providers to access critical patient information at the point of care for the purposes of treatment. Prior to leading WHIN, she served as technology coordinator for the City of Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services for four and a half years.

Among other things, Landry says she will focus on completing the business planning process, which addresses longer-term sustainability and takes into account the rapidly changing marketplace, the evolving need for health information exchange, and the continuing need to enable the meaningful use of electronic health records.

She said Cal eConnect would pause to review the requests for proposals for Provider Directory with Exchange Services and Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V). “The pause will allow us sufficient time to carefully assess the rapidly changing marketplace, the evolving requirements for HIE, and the continuing need to enable the meaningful use of EMRs,” she wrote in an introductory e-mail to stakeholders.