In This Issue:
 Letter From The President
New Board Member
Programs
Sponsorship
Financial Report
Student Involvement in HIMSS
Advocacy Corner
Spotlight on Local CIO and CTO
People on the Move
Member Input
Letter From The President
Joel Splan
GCC Members –
The first quarter for our chapter was truly exceptional. Changeover can be difficult with new people coming in and out of the board on a yearly basis, but GCC has been fortunate to have such strong representatives. In addition, board continuity has also benefited us in a number of our multi-year roles. The outcome of these two factors is that we can pick up where we left off and provide great programs even early in the year. On Thursday, September 17th we had this year’s first education program, “The Road to the CIO”, and it was well attended and even better received. In fact, the overall program received an outstanding score of 3.9 on a 4.0 scale. This is the highest program score in recent memory. This program had a terrific moderator in Ralph Wakerly of Wakerly Partners, Inc. With assistance from the audience, Ralph facilitated over 90 minutes of dialogue and insights from our panel of CIOs. On the panel were Diana Stump of Edward Health Services, Ellen Swoger of Methodist Medical Center of Illinois, Rose Ann Laureto of University of Illinois Medical Center, Kerry Kerlin of Rush North Shore Medical Center, Vince Vitali of BroMenn Healthcare and Tim Zoph of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I would like to thank our moderator, our panelists, and the membership for their time in attending this program. I think everyone would agree that is was insightful and inspiring.
October 23rd and 24th was the Midwest Fall Technology Conference. This event was held locally in Lombard, Illinois. Year after year this event continues to be an excellent event to network and learn with your Healthcare IT peers. This year’s theme was “Virtualization” and learning how successful organizations are virtualizing their infrastructure, their work force and their patient’s experience. A keynote presentation for the conference was presented by Paul Sikora, Vice President, IT Transformation at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Mr. Sikora opened the conference by sharing how UPMC has successfully virtualized over 1500 systems in their UNIX, LINUX and Windows environments over the last 30 months. This presentation discussed some of the pitfalls and successes of the effort. In addition, keynote presentations were delivered by Barb Bartlein of The People Pro and Denise Webb of the Wisconsin eHealth Initiative. Please visit our website at www.gcchimss.net to review the presentations from this event.
In conclusion, this is a very exciting time to be involved in Healthcare IT. I found it interesting that both presidential candidates agreed on little except the need for electronic health care records and the benefit they would provide. I’ll keep the political commentary out, and simply state that no matter what direction the country goes we have many exciting opportunities ahead of us.
Thank you again to all of our members and sponsors, and I hope to see you all at the next GCC-HIMSS event.
Joel A. Splan
President, GCC HIMSS
Director, Information Services
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
jsplan@nmh.org
New Board Member
Joel A. Splan
It is my pleasure to announce that Mike Carr has been elected as our newest Member-at-Large for the GCC Board. You may remember that we recently had a position vacancy and held an off-cycle election to fill that role. Mike was elected by our membership with 57% of the vote. Mike Carr leads the healthcare practice for Laurus Technologies in Chicago and is a frequent attendee of the GCC-HIMSS programs. Mike Carr speaks nationally on a number of topics and has a long history in the healthcare sector. Please join me in welcoming Mike to the GCC Board.
I’d also like to take a moment and thank our other members who were nominated for the position, as well as our membership for taking the time to vote.
Joel A. Splan
President, GCC HIMSS
Director, Information Services
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
312.926.7833
jsplan@nmh.org
2008 - 2009 GCC HIMSS Programs
Mike Cohen
The 2008-2009 education programs year will be another busy one.
On September 18 we had our first program of the year – "The Road to CIO". Six Chicago area CIO’s shared the varied paths that lead them to their current roles. There were many helpful, practical and humorous tips shared. Feedback was terrific – including an overall rating of 3.9 (on a 4 point scale) from evaluations completed by attendees.
To better serve our members in Central and Southern Illinois, we are planning to conduct an education program in Bloomington, Illinois on January 29, 2009. Due to the interest and success of “The Road to CIO” program, we will conduct a similar program, using of course, CIOs from Central and Southern Illinois rather than the Chicago area. Save the date and watch for additional information.
In the 2008-2009 year, we will be conducting at least one more local education program in Chicago, and two social/networking programs. Dates and details will be announced.
We are always looking for new topics and better ways to meet our education mission. Feel free to email me (mike@mrccg.com) with any ideas you would like to share.
Mike Cohen
MRC Consulting Group
Education Program Chair
mike@mrccg.com
CPHIMS Continuing Education
The 2008 Fall Program “The Road to CIO” has been approved by HIMSS for continuing education credit towards renewal of the CPHIMS credential. This program has been approved for up to 2.4 contact hours of continuing education credit towards renewal of the CPHIMS credential.
HIMSS Professional Development Resources
Keri Christensen
CPHIMS is a professional certification program for healthcare information and management systems professionals. Individuals who meet eligibility criteria and successfully complete the CPHIMS exam is designated a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS). Learn more here: http://www.himss.org/ASP/certification_cphims.asp
GCC-HIMSS is considering offering a Project Management class at a discounted rate for members in 2009. If you would be interested in attending, please contact Keri Christensen at gcchimss@gmail.com.
2008 Midwest Fall Technology Program
Dawn Mitchell, Laurus Technology
Ruth MacCallum, Ingenix Consulting
GCCHIMSS hosted the 2008 Midwest Fall Technology Conference, “Virtual Information Technology: Keeping IT Real”, in Lombard, IL October 23rd and 24th. The event was co-sponsored by five other Midwest Chapters including Iowa, Kentucky Blue Grass, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin Dairyland. Based on the evaluations, the conference was a huge success!
The Midwest Chapters Fall Technology Conference began in Wisconsin a few years ago, and has grown into a rotating event hosted by several Chapters in the Midwest region. This year’s conference was a day and a half long and included three key note speakers, four workshops, nine breakout sessions and over 40 exhibitors, providing valuable educational opportunities for close to 300 attendees. Attendees earned 19.8 CPHIMS credits for attending the educational sessions. Also the conference expanded this year to include pre-conference events such as the
Midwest Nursing Informatics Symposium.
The Third Annual Nursing Symposium formerly sponsored by Chicago and Wisconsin chapters joined with The Midwest Chapters Fall Technology Conference this year. This allowed nurses to attend the technology educational offerings and non-nurses to attend and learn about nursing informatics. The theme this year was "Enhancing Nursing Presence Through Informatics". Three keynote speakers presented the morning sessions and four speakers gave presentations divided between two tracks in the afternoon. The closing presentation capsulized the day. Evaluation feedback was outstanding for the entire day! Nursing attendees earned 6.0 INA approved education credits. Many attendees indicated they looked forward to attending again in 2009!
Sponsorship Update
Corey Gaarde
We are once again excited to announce that we have again seen steady and diverse growth in our overall GCC-HIMSS Sponsorship Program. We wanted to provide you with a breakdown as to our sponsors by category and offer our sincere thanks to all of our sponsors for their support of our programs and chapter operations. Without their help, we could not be the successful chapter we are or have the resources necessary to put-on such excellent educational events throughout the year. If you have the opportunity to work with any of these firms, please thank them for their support of GCC-HIMSS. If you want additional information about any of our sponsors, please refer to the GCC-HIMSS website or our sponsors websites.
Elite
Arcadia Solutions
Artromick
Beacon Partners
Burwood
Healthia Consulting
InterSystems
Laurus Technologies
Meridian IT Inc.
Sprint-Nextel
Symantec
Virtelligence
Premier
Insight
IBM
MoreDirect
Impact Advisors
Lexmark
Oracle
Partner
Kemtah
Fujitsu
Innovative Consulting Group
Niscayah
S&P Consultants
TUSC
Supporter
1Call
Elliott Data Systems
Flo Healthcare
Mobile Access
Corey M. Gaarde
Burwood Group
cgaarde@burwood.com
Spotlight on Sponsors
This month we are pleased to feature our newest Elite Sponsor, Meridian IT.
Why GCC-HIMSS
Meridian has expanded our HIMSS memberships to a corporate level this year by becoming an Elite Sponsor. We believe that our 30 years of IT experience combined with our healthcare expertise can help healthcare organizations drive better patient care and critical clinician access.
We see the evolving IT needs in the healthcare industry met with the same technology challenges that we have experienced over the past 30 years and we are in a position to provide the best overall solutions with the most qualified experts in the industry to drive up productivity and drive down cost while increasing the patient quality of care.
By partnering with HIMSS we hope to increase our visibility in the Healthcare industry while further developing mutually beneficial relationships with key healthcare IT decision makers. Additionally, our involvement enable us to better understand emerging healthcare IT trends.
Who We Are
Meridian IT Inc. is a worldwide company with 30 years experience in providing end to end solutions to meet customers IT needs. We are a comprehensive IT Solutions provider that employs in-house expert technicians committed to designing and implementing the technologies that best meet the needs of our customers. As an independent company, we can select from the best manufacturers in the industry, giving customers a broader choice of options and features. Meridian's mission is to provide customers with the most advanced and efficient technology solutions available, minimizing business disruption and, ultimately, maximizing organizational productivity-and success.
What sets Meridian IT apart in our market space is depth of experience, range of solutions, and international presence all combined with a proven track record for exceeding expectations. We credit that success to our world-class team of business consultants and technical specialists made up of both former employees from the worlds’ premier technology providers as well as former IT professionals with first-hand experience solving the issues our customers face today. Together, we are able to bring a unique and complete perspective that cuts through the industry noise and maximizes project success.
Key relationships with over 50 top hardware and software vendors allows Meridian IT to bring optimum solutions to challenging business issues. Innovative methodology focused on customer value provides solutions rather than products.
Connecting With The Healthcare Industry
Meridian recognizes the challenges of the healthcare industry and provides technology solutions that equip healthcare providers with the necessary IT tools to contain costs, improve patient safety and deliver superior quality of service. We understand the complexities of the healthcare market and can provide valuable solutions with a focus on ease of use and low maintenance. Our dedicated healthcare team, brings together all of the components critical to helping healthcare professionals succeed in today’s ever changing marketplace.
Meridian IT Delivers Key Technology Solutions to the Healthcare Industry
• PACS, RIS, CIS, HIS and regulatory compliance
• Business Intelligence and Enterprise Management
• Server, Storage Consolidation & Virtualization
• Unified Systems Management and Administration
• Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
• High Availability, Backup, Recovery and Archiving
• Wireless & Networking Solutions
• RFID
• Managed Services
• Financing Solutions
Worldwide Headquarters:
Nine Parkway North
Deerfield, IL 60015
1-800-811-2674
www.meridianitinc.com
Fiscal Year 2009 – Financial Report
Greater Chicago Chapter
Robert Milfajt
Click Here
What does HIMSS offer specifically to Students?
Scholarships:
• The HIMSS national organization offers several $5-7,000 scholarships to students in the fields similar to industrial engineering, operations research, healthcare informatics, computer science and information systems, mathematics, and quantitative programs in business administration and hospital administration will predominate.
• The GCCHIMSS chapter also offers two, $2,500 scholarships annually to students in a health informatics or healthcare related field of study, one for graduate students and the other for undergraduates. Applications for this scholarship will be available at www.gcchimss.net starting in August 2008, with a deadline of October 2008.
Program development opportunities:
• Work with the program committee in educational program planning
• Help out at program events with registration or other hosting functions
Networking opportunities:
• Come to our local chapter programs to learn about current topics in Healthcare IT
• Stay after the program to network with other chapter members and enjoy hors d'oeuvres
What does HIMSS Membership Cost?
For full time students, HIMSS/GCCHIMSS joint membership is $30. For part time students, The HIMSS/GCCHIMSS joint membership is $140 and GCCHIMSS-only membership is also available for $30.
If you are a student or work with students who may be interested in more information about HIMSS, please feel free to contact us directly for further details.
Contact Kshitij Naval at knaval14@gmail.com for further information on student opportunities. Contact Keri Christensen at gcchimss@gmail.com for information on scholarships.
Mentorship Opportunities
Keri Christensen
One of the best services we can offer to our student members is the opportunity to have a mentor.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor for a 1 year commitment, please contact Keri Christensen at gcchimss@gmail.com.
We currently are looking for a nursing informatics director or similar in the south suburbs to mentor one of our student members. Please contact Keri if you are interested.
Advocacy Corner
Keri Christensen
As many of you know, Congress had gone home for the year in preparation for the elections. The Senate is expected to return to DC perhaps on November 17th for a lame duck session. The House may also hold an end of the year session. We feel it is highly unlikely that any activity will occur around HIT in the remainder of this year, due to the economic crisis. However, several congressional offices have indicated that HIT will be one of their top priorities for the 111th Congress.
A few Bills to watch:
HR6898 in the House, sponsored by Stark
HR6357 in the House, sponsored by the Energy and Commerce committee and Dingle
PRO(TECH)T Act of 2008 http://capwiz.com/himss/issues/bills/?bill=11559376
To learn more: http://capwiz.com/himss/issues/bills/
A few Bills that include HIT that have been cleared for the White House
1) S 3001, A bill to authorize appropriations for FY 09 military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense. HIT Significance: Sec. 252: Establishment of technology neutral information technology guidelines and standards to support fully interoperable electronic personal health information for the department of defense and department of veterans affairs. Levin (MI) 9/27/08
2) S 1492 Provides for grants to develop and implement statewide initiatives to identify and track the availability and adoption of broadband services within each state. HIT Significance: Broadband, infrastructure availability. Inoye [HI]
Keri Christensen
gcchimss@gmail.com
Spotlight on Local CIO and CTO
Diana Stump
Diana Stump is the new CIO of Edward Hospital. Diana has been at Edward Hospital for 3 years. Her prior position at Edward was IT Director, Project Management Office. Prior to joining Edward Hospital she worked at Northwest Community Hospital for15 years. Her latest position, Director of IT Projects and Business Services, oversaw the development of a project management/process methodology, chaired the Clinical Systems Steering Team and coordinated the Physician Advisory Council. Diana was the Project Director for the HCIS replacement project, from selection to go-live of 14 applications. During her time at Northwest Community, she became Board Certified in Nursing Informatics, achieved Senior and HIMSS Fellow status, and became CPHIMS certified.
Diana has mentored several graduate students, and has been an instructor with Loyola University, Northern Illinois University, and Adjunct Faculty of the University of Illinois. Diana has been active at the National level of HIMSS, serving on two standing committees, speaking at the national annual conference, and speaking at many local and regional workshops on Informatics. She was an active member of MANI (the Midwest alliance for Nursing Informatics), serving in leadership positions with the organization. Diana began her career in nursing.
Laura Bagus is the new CTO for Edward Hospital. She has been with Edward Hospital for 13 years. She began her career at Edward Hospital as a technician. As she took on additional responsibilities and learned new technologies, she became a manager, a director, and eventually the Chief Technology Officer. Prior to her career at Edward Hospital she was a computer technician at Harrah’s casino.
Both Diana and Laura are active in HIMSS and see this organization as a major driver in getting to the positions they have today, and to their continued success. Diana went to her first national HIMSS event over 15 years ago and was enthralled with the organization. From her perspective, no other health care IT organization offers such a broad base of learning and networking. The local GCC-HIMSS chapter is an extension of this. HIMSS affords the Edwards executives the opportunity to sit in on educational sessions and to talk to their peers about what they’ve learned and the business issues they are facing. The national conference enables them to make rapid decisions about prospective vendors and to fast tracks their procurement decisions and the procurement process. It is not uncommon for them to meet up to twelve prospective vendors at the national show and only invite two or three back for a follow up meeting. In the past, vendor selection could go on for months. Now, they can quickly move to the RFP/RFI stage and reduce the procurement cycle time to a few weeks.
Laura and the Edward team use the week long national HIMSS conference as a way to gauge their prior year’s outcomes, to determine what initiatives to undertake for the upcoming year, and as a benchmark for their 5-year plan. While most people go to HIMSS and have fun, Laura states “we usually need a vacation after HIMSS”. As CTO of Edward, her team strategically selects sessions to attend together and sessions to attend individually. Appointments are set with select vendors prior to traveling to the show and ample time for networking and meeting peers is also scheduled. Their strategic approach to HIMSS helps to ensure they are not making major decisions in a vacuum.
Having a CTO and a CIO at the same executive level at a hospital is an exception in most health care institutions. It is fairly typical for the CTO to report to the CIO. As CTO, Laura Bagus is focused on the technology side of the organization like virtualization, disaster recovery, storage and security. As CIO, Diana Stump is focused on the clinical applications, systems, financial and business issues, and the strategic plan. Diana believes that when one person is tasked with everything, things can come to a grinding halt – one person is a bottleneck – unless there exists a strong team of directors. By splitting the work, each now has the time to focus on the end results and the end users. Both Diana and Laura contribute the Edward Hospital culture of collaboration and sharing to their success.
Another critical key to their success is strong vendor relationships. Participation in local GCC-HIMSS events has enabled them to build professional and personal relationships with their vendors. Laura finds her vendors are vested in her success and the success of the hospital when there is a strong relationship. The local GCC-HIMSS event gives her time to relax and enjoy the company of their existing vendors and the chance to meet new vendors.
From bedside nurse to CIO, and casino technician to CTO, both Diana and Laura attribute their success to their involvement with HIMSS. This dynamic duo will be exciting to watch in the years to come.
Diana Stump received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from Ball State University, her Masters Degree in Nursing Administration from DePaul University, and worked toward her MBA at Keller University. Diana is married to Jim and has two children; her daughter, Cami, and son, Chase.
Laura Bagus received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science from Governor State University, her MBA from Benedictine University. Laura is married to Rich and has two children; her son Brett, and daughter Morgan.
Congrats to our members!
Mary Jane Rouchka
Charles Colander, to Vice President, CIO at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital. Charles previously worked at Northwestern Memorial Hospital as the Chief Technology Officer.
David Miller, to Executive Director, Application Systems, University of Chicago Medical Center. David was previously Director, Information Systems Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, IL and prior to that he worked for many years in consulting.
Amanda Constant, to Assistant Director, Applications Group, University of Chicago Medical Center. Amanda previously worked at Deloitte Consulting, and other healthcare and IT companies.
Bonnie Siegel, to Vice President, Healthcare IT Practice, Cejka Search, Northbrook, IL. Bonnie was formerly with Hersher Associates. Cejka Search is one of the leading and largest retained healthcare executive search firms in the country. Bonnie will be building the healthcare IT executive search business for Cejka and focusing on CIOs, CTOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, VP and Director levels and Clinical Informatics positions in provider organizations.
Keri Christensen, to Senior Policy Analyst in Clinical Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the American Medical Association. Keri previously worked at Northwestern Memorial Hospital as an application analyst – patient care.
If you, or someone you know, have recently been promoted or moved to a new organization, please let us know! We want to highlight your success. Please send your submissions to maryjane.rouchka@sprint.com.
Milestones Achieved
Mary Jane Rouchka
Julie Kenney, RNC-OB, Advocate Christ Medical Center, graduated in May with an MSN in Health Systems Management and a certificate in Healthcare Informatics from Loyola University Chicago. She also co-authored a book chapter in an informatics textbook that was recently published. The book chapter is: Kenney, J. A. & Androwich, I. (2008) Nursing informatics roles, competencies, and skills. In Dee McGongile & Kathleen Mastrian (Eds.) Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge (p. 107-131). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Member Input Please
Topic-based Networking Events
The local GCC-HIMSS chapter is considering holding informal topic-based networking events for our membership. There would be no cost to these events, and you could purchase food or drink on your own at the selected venue. We ask you to fill out this survey if you would be interested in attending these events, in order for us to best serve our memberships needs. Please provide your feedback to Michael Cohen at mike@mrccg.com.
1)What are some topics that you would be interesting in attending a networking event for?
a. Analyst forum - what projects are being implemented at local institutions?
b. Enterprise Data Warehouse-administration, clinical, financial
c. Virtualization
d. Liability issues - metadata and e-discovery
e. ERP Optimization
f. IT Governance - ITIL and COBIT
g. ITIL Adoption/Case Studies/Panel
h. Measuring IT Performance
i. Organizational Culture Change Partners
j. EHR Standards and CCHIT
k. Electronic Document Management
l. Application Integration
m. Interoperability
n. Business Process Management
o. Personal Health Records
p. Vendor relations - how to negotiate
q. Other:
2)When is the best time of day for a networking event if you were to attend?
a. Breakfast – 7-8:30 AM
b. Lunch – Noon – 1:30 PM
c. Cocktail hour – 5:30 – 7PM
d. Dinner – 6:30-8PM
3)What location would be best for a networking event?
a. Downtown Chicago/Loop
b. Lombard
c. Suburb: ___________
d. Other: ____________
4)How often would you like to see networking events held?
a. Monthly
b. Bi-weekly
c. Quarterly
d. Yearly
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President
Joel Splan
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Past President
Vince Vitali
BroMenn Healthcare
President Elect
Susan Wozniak
Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare
Secretary
Brigid Donohue
Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare
Treasurer
Robert Milfajt
Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundations
Sponsorship Chair
Corey Gaarde
Burwood Group
Communication Chair
Mary Jane Rouchka
Sprint – Nextel
Communication Chair
Anthony Beard
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Professional Development Chair
Keri Christensen
American Medical Association
Education Program Chair
Michael Cohen
MRC Consulting Group
Nursing Informatics Special Coordinator
Ruth MacCallum, BS RN-BC
Healthia Consulting
Student Liaison
Kshitij Naval
University of Illinois at Chicago
Member-at-Large
Ellen Swoger
Methodist Medical Center of Illinois
Member-at-Large
Becki Lapke
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Member-at-Large
David Miller
University of Chicago Medical Center
HIMSS Staff
Stephanie Serra
HIMSS
HIMSS Staff
Jessie Bird
HIMSS
GCC HIMSS Web Site:
http://www.gcchimss.net
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