Ann Hendrich, RN, MSN, FAANis the Vice President of Clinical Excellence Operations at Ascension Health’s system office. She chairs the Chief Nursing Officer community while guiding the implementation of Clinical Excellence and informatics initiatives in partnership with executives, board members, and clinical officer leadership.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from DePauw University and a Master’s Degree from Indiana State University in Adult Health and Administration. As a 3 year RWJ Executive Fellow, her focus was on leading organizational change and she was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing in 2005.

She was the Principal Investigator for the Acuity-Adaptable Comprehensive Cardiac Critical Care model. The patient rooms of the future incorporate comfort, healing, technology, and efficiency into an integrated design. Her current research is an extension of the work in a national multi-site study that was conducted in 36 hospitals funded by the Robert Wood Johnson and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation on the Work Environment of nurses and the relationship to patient outcomes known as the Time and Motion study.

Ann is widely published in professional journals and nursing text, is active on editorial boards, serves as a grant reviewer for major nursing organizations, and is a frequent advisor to the Health Technology Center, The Advisory Board, and is a board member for the Center of Health Design, Zynx and the Nursing Advisory Council with The Joint Commission. With a special interest in geriatrics, she is also the author of the Hendrich II Risk Model, a predictive model for inpatient falls. In 2007, Modern Healthcare identified Ann as one of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare.

She is currently completing her PhD doctoral study at Loyola University.

Liz Johnson, RN, MSN, CPHIMS, FHIMSSis the Vice President of Clinical Informatics for Tenet HealthSystem. In this capacity she has responsibility for the strategic vision and the tactical plan for all clinical systems used throughout the Tenet organization of 72 provider organizations. Today the clinical application suite of products for Tenet includes over 3,000 clinical applications and 5,000 custom interfaces. Under Ms. Johnson’s leadership, Tenet has developed and is implementing a comprehensive clinical informatics vision and strategy. Liz speaks nationally and internationally on clinical applications particularly focused on their strategic use as a tool for enhanced patient safety. Prior to joining Tenet, Liz was and Executive Vice President and National Practice Leader for HIPAA for Healthlink, Inc. As a nationally recognized HIPAA expert, she has shared her in-depth knowledge of HIPAA in over 150 presentations. A partial list of her HIPAA speaking engagements includes ACHE, CHIME and HIMSS. Additionally, Ms. Johnson has directed numerous HIPAA consulting engagements, including readiness assessments, offices of project management, HIPAA planning and training. During her 6 years as an executive with Healthlink, Liz performed a variety of management roles assisting in the migration of a small boutique consulting firm into a major consulting presence in the healthcare market.

With 30 years experience in executive and staff positions throughout provider organizations she understands provider operations from every perspective, and the role IT plays in enabling best practices to be deployed by healthcare providers.

Joyce Sensmeier is Vice President of Informatics for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the country’s largest healthcare association focused on information technology. She oversees clinical informatics, standards, interoperability, privacy and security, and professional certification. Sensmeier joined HIMSS as the Director of Professional Services in December 2000.

Sensmeier became Board Certified in Nursing Informatics in 1996, earned the Certified Professional in Health Information and Management Systems in 2002, and achieved fellowship status in HIMSS in 2005. She is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University in Chicago and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She previously served at Palos Community Hospital as a nursing coordinator implementing clinical information systems.

A nationally recognized speaker and an author of multiple book chapters, articles and white papers, Sensmeier was a member of the expert panel that revised the Scope and Standards of Practice for Nursing Informatics published by the American Nurses Association in 2001. She recently assumed the position of standards implementation technical manager for the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) and serves as the co-chair of the Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI), a collaboration of 25 distinct regional and national nursing informatics organizations. Sensmeier received her BSN from Elmhurst College and her master’s degree in Nursing Administration from St. Xavier University.

Brian Dixon, M.P.A., is a Health Information Technology Project Manager with the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. Mr. Dixon has primary responsibilities in managing health information exchange related projects. He is also a member of the AHRQ National Resource Center for Health Information Technology, advising and monitoring health IT grant activities in the U.S. Prior to his current role, Mr. Dixon developed technology for Regenstrief and the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC), including tools supporting the standard clinical vocabulary LOINC, technology supporting the automated electronic reporting of reportable conditions, and tools for querying large clinical data repositories. Mr. Dixon has published a number of articles on using and funding health IT projects to improve healthcare quality, safety, and efficiency. He has also presented on these topics numerous times to groups such as the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).

After spending twenty-five years practicing medicine as an Ob/Gyn in North Texas, Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D., was first elected to Congress in 2002, and subsequently re-elected in 2004, 2006, and most recently in 2008. Dr. Burgess serves on the prestigious House Energy and Commerce Committee and its subcommittee on healthcare, and recently founded and is Chairman of the Congressional Health Care Caucus. During his six years in Congress, Dr. Burgess has been a forceful and vocal advocate for healthcare legislation aimed at reducing healthcare costs, improving choices, reforming liability laws to put the needs of patients first, and ensuring there are enough doctors to care for America’s patients.

Craig Miller is the chief architect for CONNECT, a SOA-based solution that connects federal agencies into nationwide health information exchanges. As a strategic advisor to the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) program, he guides the development of CONNECT and other federal solutions based on his expertise in electronic health information exchange, electronic health records and service-oriented architecture. Mr. Miller has more than 12 years of enterprise architecture experience at the director level, working with agencies such as HHS, CMS, FDA, USDA and OMB. He was the lead enterprise architect for HHS’ department-wide enterprise architecture initiative, and He led the development of versions 2.0-2.2 of the OMB EA Assessment Framework and was responsible for developing the structure of the Federal Transition Framework.

Vish Sankaran was appointed Director of the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) program in the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in March 2007. As FHA director, he has driven collaboration among federal agencies to advance the adoption of interoperable health IT in order to allow for the secure exchange of health information within the federal government, and with state, tribal, and local governments and the private sector. This goal is being achieved through initiatives that provide federal business needs management, and systematic investment planning, reporting and interoperability architecture. Under Mr. Sankaran's leadership, FHA has worked with federal agencies to rapidly and efficiently implement government-wide solutions for interoperable and secure health information exchange that address agency business priorities while protecting citizen privacy. FHA serves the needs of more than twenty federal agencies in domains as diverse as military and veterans’ healthcare, public health monitoring, long-term care and disability services, research, tribal health services and many other critical federal priorities. Before arriving at HHS in 2005, Mr. Sankaran worked in the private-sector healthcare technology field. He was the Director of IT and product operations at CareScience Inc, a healthcare application service provider that helps hospitals and health systems improve care management, clinical performance and data sharing. While at CareScience, he developed strategies to achieve organizational goals, built cohesive teams, increased operational efficiency and reduced costs. In that position, he administered architecture and operations of healthcare software products, including health information exchange solutions.

Dave Roberts is Vice President of Government Relations for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the country’s largest healthcare association focused on information technology. In his role, Mr. Roberts oversees and acts as the primary contact for the association’s congressional, federal and state outreach to influence and educate key stakeholders. He also serves as Senior Executive for the HIMSS Virginia Office, which includes the Office of Advocacy and Public Policy, and he is the staff liaison to the HIMSS Advocacy and Public Policy Steering Committee, whose members work with key federal decision-makers and other organizations to advance improvements in the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare through the use of IT and management systems. Prior to joining HIMSS in August 2002, Mr. Roberts served as a financial analyst for the U.S. Air Force in the Pentagon and Germany. He was also a staff assistant to U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.) on the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Handicapped and a senior professional staff member on the U.S. House Appropriations Committee. In addition, Mr. Roberts has worked on three U.S. presidential campaigns and as a staff assistant for Virginia State Sen. Patsy Ticer (D-Alexandria) in the Virginia General Assembly. He also served as a Corporate Vice President for a HIMSS Diamond Corporate member.

Debra Wolf, PhD, MSN, BSN, RN is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Slippery Rock University. Her program of research focuses on nurses impacting patient outcomes using a patient-centered model of care. Dr. Wolf has 30 years experience in nursing in the acute care and academic settings. Prior to assuming her role at Slippery Rock University, Dr. Wolf served as Administrative Director of Education, Research, and Nursing Informatics, where she led several departments including Research, Education and two diploma schools of nursing. She is a member of ANA, STT, TIGER, NLN, HIMSS, and taskforce leader for NNSDO. She has presented nationally and internationally and serves as mentor and coach for nursing professionals. Dr. Wolf oversees the Healthcare Informatics Certification Program at Slippery Rock University. In addition, she is an adjunct faculty member at Robert Morris University, where she developed a course for DnP students which addresses the use of Information Technology and EBP. Dr. Wolf is a healthcare consultant supporting the integration of new technology into healthcare settings.

Dr. John Parker commanded the Medical Research and Materiel Command (MRMC), which includes the U.S. Army’s Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the Institute of Chemical Defense (USAICD), and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) from 1998 to 2002. He is an expert in managing institutions that are researching and analyzing offensive and defensive biological warfare as well as responding to their biological contingencies. Dr. Parker has served in critical Medical (Life Science) S&T advisory positions in the Department of Defense and teaches impacts of chemical and biological agents at every university in the National Capital Region.

Eric Rivedal is the Nursing Workflow Manager for McKesson inpatient nursing products, focusing on functional design of cross-product issues and workflows. He has been with McKesson for eight years as an analyst on a variety of clinical products including Horizon Emergency Care and Horizon Expert Orders. Prior to his time with McKesson, Mr. Rivedal spent 13 years working at Denver Health in a variety of clinical and management positions including Inpatient Pediatrics, Labor & Delivery, Intensive Care, Emergency Department, and Outpatient Clinics in Family Practice and Occupational Health and Safety. Eric holds BSN and MSN (Informatics) degrees from the University of Colorado.

Joyce Sensmeier joined HIMSS as the Director of Professional Services in December 2000. She currently serves as HIMSS Vice President of Informatics and is responsible for the areas of clinical informatics, standards, interoperability, privacy and security, and professional certification. Ms. Sensmeier received her Masters degree in Nursing Administration from St. Xavier University, and her Bachelors Degree in Nursing from Elmhurst College. She became Board Certified in Nursing Informatics in 1996, earned the Certified Professional in Health Information and Management Systems in 2002, and achieved fellowship status in HIMSS in 2005. She is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University Chicago and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. She previously served at Palos Community Hospital as a nursing coordinator implementing clinical information systems. An internationally recognized speaker and author of multiple book chapters, articles and white papers, Ms. Sensmeier was a member of the expert panel that revised the Scope and Standards of Practice for Nursing Informatics published by the American Nurses Association in 2001. She currently serves as technical manager for the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) a national standards harmonization project and is the co-chair of the Alliance for Nursing Informatics, a collaboration of 25 distinct regional and national nursing informatics organizations.

Gregory L. Alexander, Ph.D., R.N.is currently an Assistant Professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri. He joined the faculty of Sinclair in July 2005 after completing his doctoral work in nursing and health systems. Dr. Alexander was appointed the first National Library of Medicine Fellow in Informatics from the school of nursing while completing his doctoral studies. Dr. Alexander completed his undergraduate work in Biology and Nursing at Missouri State University and received his Master's from the department of Health Management and Informatics at the University of Missouri in 1999. His career goals are to establish himself as an independent investigator and expert recognized in human computer interaction evaluation. He is interested in developing and designing innovative, health system level interventions using sophisticated technologies to deliver care to aging populations to enhance patient safety, clinical work flow and evidence based practice.

Nancy Staggers is a nationally known expert in Nursing Informatics. Since her informatics doctoral education at the University of Maryland, she has led large projects to define, develop, install and evaluate enterprise clinical information systems. Her research program centers on human-computer interaction and she publishes widely on informatics topics. She is currently Professor and program director for nursing informatics at the University of Utah.

Michelle Troseth, MSN, RN, is the Executive Vice President and Chief Professional Practice Officer for the Clinical Practice Model Resource Center (CPMRC), a business unit of Elsevier, and provides strategic clinical leadership for Elsevier. Michelle has over 20 years experience in creating and sustaining healthy, healing workplaces and integrated healthcare services. Her passion is creating environments that “live” the high-tech/high-touch polarity to transform healthcare locally and globally.

Denise Tyler is a masters-prepared Clinical Specialist and project lead at Kaweah Delta Health Care District in central California. She also earned a Masters of Business Administration and is certified in Nursing Informatics. She has presented on real life experiences at SINI and Siemens conferences. Denise wrote a chapter (co-wrote?) in the 2008 McGonigle and Mastrian book, "Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge.” She is on the board of the American Nursing Informatics Association and has been involved with the TIGER Initiative since 2006.

Dr. Parker is the Senior Clinical Informatics Specialist for Motion Computing®, Inc. a global leader in designing ultra mobile wireless device products and services for healthcare professionals and those in other vertical industries. She has over 30 years experience in the healthcare industry including clinical nursing, management, nursing informatics, and education both corporate and academic. Dr. Parker has worked in clinical system selection and implementation from both a facility and vendor perspective. She works at all levels of the nursing within a facility to ensure successful outcomes for the clinician and the organization. She has been responsible for the development of all clinician usability studies for Motion and has completed the “Protection of Human Subjects in Research” course offered through Collaborative IRB Training Initiative (CITI).

She is a member of the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA), CARING, Sigma Theta Tau, Healthcare Informatics Systems Society (HIMSS) where she serves on the Nursing Informatics Taskforce, and is a governing director of the Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI).

She has been a contributor to the growing body of healthcare knowledge as a presenter and author. She received Associate, Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Nursing, completed a post-master’s certificate in Nursing Informatics, and completed her PhD in Education with a specialization in Training and Performance Improvement.

Heidi Echols is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP. Ms. Echols is chair of the Firm’s Health Information Technology Affinity Group and co-chair of the Firm’s Electronic Data Management, Privacy and Discovery Group. Her practice focuses on information technology (IT) transactions and counseling such as EHR transactions, and privacy and security matters, including state notification requirements regarding security breaches and the privacy and security rules promulgated under HIPAA. Ms. Echols is a member of HIMSS and co-chair of the American Health Lawyers Association Tech Licensing and IP Affinity Group and is a frequent speaker and author on technology and privacy matters. She was named to the 2009 Illinois Rising Star list in Super Lawyers magazine and is also the 2009 recipient of the National Public Service Award presented by the American Bar Association Section of Business Law for her leadership of a multi-disciplinary and cross-office team in McDermott’s representation of a nonprofit health reform organization in its implementation of a regional health information organization (RHIO).

Marilyn Lamar is an attorney with more than twenty years of experience in corporate and information technology law, including electronic health records (EHR) and HIPAA privacy and security issues. Her practice includes a broad range of outsourcing, licensing, and other technology transactions on behalf of hospitals, health plans, physicians, group purchasing organizations and technology companies. Ms. Lamar is a member of HIMSS, serving on the Ambulatory IS Steering Committee, the Payer Roundtable and the Legal Aspects of the Enterprise Task Force. She is a frequent author and speaker on EHRs, evolving liability issues involving information technology, HIPAA privacy and security and outsourcing. Before joining Liss & Lamar, P.C., Ms. Lamar was a capital partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP where she chaired the Health Law Department’s Information Technology practice group and co-chaired its HIPAA practice group. She also chaired the Health Information and Technology Practice Group of the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) from 2002 to 2005 and serves on its Quality Council.

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn is a health economist and management consultant who has worked with health care stakeholders in the U.S. and Europe for over two decades. Jane founded THINK-Health, a strategic health consultancy, in 1992 after spending a decade as a health care consultant in firms in the U.S. and Europe.

Jane’s projects focus on the nexus of health care and technology applying the tools of scenario and strategic planning, qualitative market research, forecasting, and health policy analysis. Jane is a columnist for iHealthBeat, an online publication of the California HealthCare Foundation, where she writes about health and technology. Jane also writes the popular Health Populi blog. Jane sits on the Advisory Board of the Health 2.0 conference and is one of the founding principals of Health 2.0 Advisors.

Jane wrote the seminal white paper, The Wisdom of Patients: Health Care Meets Social Media, on behalf of California HealthCare Foundation, in April 2008.

Jane holds an MA (Economics) and MHSA (Health Policy) from the University of Michigan. Jane is a frequent public speaker and writer on the subject of health-technology, -politics and -economics. While Jane is passionate about her work, she is even more passionate about her family and home, Slow Food, and living a full and balanced life. More about Jane can be found on the THINK-Health website and on the Health Populi blog.

Janet Bochinski has over 30 years of experience in healthcare, including acute and primary care nursing, education, health systems project management, system deployment and integration, and the development and implementation of complex health systems analysis methodologies. While at Unisys Corporation, she served as the Principal Investigator in a Mobile Electronic Health Record study for the Department of Defense, Telemedicine and Advance Technology Research Center (TATRC). She has spoken at various conferences regarding the study. Ms. Bochinski is currently an active member of the HIMSS Enterprise Information Systems Steering Committee (2007-2009) and has been a member of other groups including the HIMSS EHR Toolkit working group (2005 -2006) and HIMSS Integration and Interoperability Committee (2005-2006).

Jerome A. Osheroff, MD is Chief Clinical Informatics Officer for the healthcare business of Thomson Reuters, where he ensures that their decision support offerings are optimally responsive to clinician, patient, and management information needs, and that they measurably improve healthcare outcomes. He was the lead author, “Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support,” and HIMSS bestseller and 2005 Book of the Year, “Improving Outcomes with CDS: An Implementer’s Guide.” Dr. Osheroff helped guide national CDS efforts, e.g. executing Roadmap through service on AHIC Quality and CDS workgroups. He also led guidebook development by scores of individuals/organizations on best practices for improving medication management with CDS - will be co-published in 2008 by HIMSS, AMIA, AMDIS, ISMP, SI, and ASHP. Dr. Osheroff is an active in provider consulting on improving outcomes with CDS and a faculty and clinical staff member at the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Currie is currently the Director of Clinical Outcomes for Advocate Health Care in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Advocate Health Care consists of 7 Acute Care Hospitals, 1 Long Term Acute Care Hospital, 3 large medical groups and Home Health Care. In her current capacity, Ms. Currie works with quality initiatives throughout the system. During her career, Ms. Currie has held multiple leadership roles including Clinical Nurse Specialist, Administrative Director, Chief Nurse Executive, Director of Education and Practice, and has taught as Visiting Professor at University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University in their schools of nursing. Ms. Currie has primarily focused on the Acute Care Environment. She is a member of several professional organizations. Ms. Currie is published and presented extensively on current healthcare issues.

John Chuo, MD, FAAP, MS, did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University and subsequently earned an MD degree as well as completed a 3 year Pediatric residency from New York University School of Medicine. Subsequently, he moved to Boston where he completed a fellowship in Neonatology at Children’s Hospital Boston and earned a masters degree in Biomedical Informatics thru the Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology program. He moved to New Jersey in 2004 to join the faculty of the UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 2004, where he became the Pediatric champion for enterprise information system initiatives and well as the medical director and quality improvement co-chair of the neonatal critical care unit. Currently, John Chuo is the Neonatal Quality Informatics Officer for the Division of Neonatology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a practicing physician, board certified in Pediatrics and Neonatology. His academic research focuses on CQI in medication management, patient safety, workflow process analytics, and the development of quality indicator dashboards.

Anwar Sirajuddin (Siraj), MBBS, MS is a Medical Informaticist and Clinical Decision Support Lead at Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas. He helped guide CDS efforts at Memorial Hermann to help improve clinical processes and patient outcomes. He is an associate editor for “Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support,” which will be co-published in 2008 by HIMSS, AMIA, AMDIS, ISMP, SI and ASHP. Mr. Sirajuddin is also a Course Instructor, “Applied Clinical Decision Support” at the School Of Health Information Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He holds a medical degree from India and Master’s Degree in Health Informatics from the School Of Health Information Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Joan R. Duke, FHIMSS, has been involved for over thirty years in all aspects of health care information systems. In 1990, she founded Health Care Information Consultants (HCIC) to assist organizations in healthcare information technology management and has assisted a variety of organizations including health systems, hospitals, home care, long-term care, hospice, behavioral health, clinics, physician groups, healthcare technology vendors, and non-profits unify their organizational and information, technology resources. Ms. Duke's experience includes enterprise technology planning, management of information systems organizations and hands-on development and implementation of systems. She is well versed in electronic health records (EHR) in both the inpatient and ambulatory environment. She has also assisted health information exchanges (HIE) providing planning support to the State of Delaware and working with members of the Maryland-DC collaborative to identify system requirements and to develop a business model for health information exchange. In 2003, she was appointed to the HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence Task Force to evaluate organizations for recognition of exemplary implementation of EHR systems. She also supervised and developed clinical systems at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and developed statistical programs for the National Institute of Mental Health. Ms. Duke obtained her MA from Johns Hopkins University in 1973. She is a HIMSS Fellow, past President of Maryland Society of Healthcare Information Systems Management (MSHISM), and participates in American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), Healthcare Technology Network of Greater Washington, and Health Level 7 (HL7) Working Group.

Dr. C. Eric Hartz is the Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) at Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) in Bangor, Maine. He also maintains an oncology practice at CancerCare of Maine. As CMIO, Hartz is involved in patient safety initiatives including development of decision support tools and standardized order sets. Since he has been at EMMC, he has spearheaded the successful implementation of many solutions including Virtual ICU, PowerInsight for data mining, Millennium Lighthouse for care pathway process change, and computerized provider order entry (CPOE), where only 1 to 2 percent of orders are now written on paper. Dr. Hartz presented on development of patient safety rules and alerts at the American Medical Informatics Association annual meeting and has traveled around the country assisting healthcare organizations in developing standardized order sets. He was also instrumental in EMMC becoming a Hospitals and Health Networks Most Wired Hospital and a recipient of the HIMSS 2008 Davies Award of Excellence, for using information technology to improve the safety and quality of patient care. Dr. Hartz received his medical degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago. In 1983, he completed training in internal medicine and an oncology fellowship at the Ohio State University Hospitals.

Dr. Brian R. Jacobs is Chief Medical Information Officer and Executive Director of the Center for Pediatric Informatics at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining Children’s National, Dr. Jacobs was a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati as well as the Director of Technology and Patient Safety at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. While at Cincinnati Children’s he oversaw the implementation of their electronic medical record and was the principal author and recipient of the HIMSS Davies Award. Dr. Jacobs specializes in pediatric critical care medicine and has authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, abstracts and scientific presentations. He frequently shares his knowledge in the pediatric space as a guest lecturer at conferences, leadership forums and hospitals. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Critical Care Medicine. He also is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the Association of Medical Directors of Information Services, and is the current chairman of the HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award Selection Committee. Dr. Jacobs received his master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Oregon and his medical degree from Oregon Health and Sciences University.

Dr. Gray Woods, Clinical Information Systems Associate, Stormont-Vail HealthCare, Topeka, Kansas. Dr. Woods has been a member of the IS team at Stormont-Vail since August, 2005 supporting the NextGen EMR application and providing training to physicians, nurses and other clinical staff. He is a board-certified ophthalmologist and was formerly the Medical Director of the Ophthalmology Residency Program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Medicine. Dr. Woods obtained his MD degree from UMKC in 1983 and completed his ophthalmology residency there in 1987.
Judy Hanover, MBA; Jim Kearns; Tom Pacek

Judy Hanover serves as research manager for Health Industry Insights' healthcare provider practice. An industry veteran, Ms. Hanover brings expertise in health care and the life sciences to her role, and provides research and market analysis on healthcare informatics. Ms. Hanover has a background in healthcare informatics, and experience working with life science, managed care, provider and clinical applications. Previously, Ms. Hanover served as a senior product marketing manager for drug safety for Phase Forward, Inc. where she was responsible for marketing drug safety and data management products to assist biopharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies with product safety and risk management strategies. Ms. Hanover was also a senior research analyst for IDC's life science practice, where she developed significant subject matter expertise in research areas including regulatory compliance, clinical trial IT infrastructure, drug development performance management, pharmacovigilance, and drug safety technology. She has also held positions in strategic planning, product management and market research at 3M Health Information Systems, Ingenix Inc., and McKesson Corporation. Ms. Hanover holds a BA in Chemistry from Harvard University, as well as an MBA, with concentration in Marketing, and an MS in Information Systems, from Boston University.

Jim Kearns is Vice President and CIO of Delnor Hospital. Mr. Kearns has over 26 years of technical experience, with more than 12 at the CIO level, and is considered a change agent who has defined and executed new strategies for a number of organizations. Prior to Delnor, he was the Vice President of IT at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, and was responsible for leading Rush through its transition to Epic. Mr. Kearns holds a Bachelor of Business degree from Western Illinois University and is currently an MBA candidate at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

Thomas Pacek is the Vice President of Information Systems and CIO for South Jersey Healthcare. Prior to joining South Jersey Healthcare in January of 2008, he was the Vice President of Information Services Operations at Virtua Health. Previous to that, Mr. Pacek served as the Assistant Vice President of Technology for Virtua Health. He has over 26 years of healthcare information technology experience and is a member of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and a member of the South Jersey EMRX Advisory Board. Currently, Mr. Pacek serves as the President-Elect of the Delaware Valley Chapter of HIMSS. He holds BS degrees in Administrative Systems Management and Accounting from Drexel University in Philadelphia and he will be receiving his MBA from Ellis University at the end of March.

Judy Van Norman serves as the Senior Director, Care Transformation at Banner Health within the Care Management department. She joined Banner Health in 1999, originally as a System Director in Information Technology. Prior to joining Banner, Judy was the Assistant Vice President for Clinical Systems at Memorial Hermann Healthcare in Houston. She has over 25 years of healthcare experience, primarily in I/T and clinical transformation leadership. 202B

Michael Van Ornum RPh, RN, BCPS is a Consulting Clinical Pharmacist for the Greater Rochester Independent Practice Association, secretary for the Pharmacy Society of Rochester, and the recipient of Clinical Practitioner of the Year 2006 award from the New York Chapter of ACCP. He provides consultative services to physicians in a clinically integrated healthcare environment and spearheaded the implementation of electronic prescribing, available to willing participants, with GRIPA's panel of over 500 physicians and their staff. Van Ornum is the author of Electronic Prescribing: A Safety and Implementation Guide. Prior to work at GRIPA, Mr. Van Ornum worked for five years as the Director of Infusion with American HomePatient after spending four years with Rochester General Hospital in roles including Acute Care Manager for inpatient pharmacy operations.

Victoria Viglucci was named Chief Information Officer of the Greater Rochester Independent Practice Association (GRIPA) in 2006. She is responsible for providing vision and leadership in the development and implementation of information technology to support GRIPA strategic initiatives on behalf of the GRIPA organization and its membership. Ms. Viglucci has been a familiar face in the Rochester information technology field for more than 20 years. Prior to her appointment as CIO, she served seven years as Director of Information Technology and Project Management for GRIPA. Before joining GRIPA, she was owner and principal at MasterLink Technologies. Ms. Viglucci, a Penfield resident and graduate of Brockport State University, has also worked in the ViaHealth System both at Independent Living for Seniors and Rochester General Hospital.

Paul DeCrosta is the Manager of the Regulatory Department in Inter-Plan Programs Division at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. His responsibilities include managing all regulatory activities and initiatives for Inter-Plan Programs. He is also responsible for regulatory/legislative compliance, including HIPAA, Health Information Technology and other industry-driven initiatives. Mr. DeCrosta has worked for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Associations since 2007. His prior experience includes 13 years at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida.

Elliot Sloane has dedicated over 30 years of his career to the healthcare and information technologies fields, with a focus on medical efficacy, efficiency, and safety. He is a past president of the American College of Clinical Engineering and the current co-chair of both HIMSS’ IHE Strategic Development Committee and the IHE Patient Care Device domain. Dr. Sloane’s research and teaching spans the biomedical engineering, medical informatics, and healthcare business management fields, and also extends into the Department of Defense's current net-centric enterprise excellence programs. He is a reviewer and writer for NIH and multiple journals and conferences and serves on several non-profit agency boards. Dr. Sloane has been a high-scoring presenter at each HIMSS Annual Conference since 2001, as well as several regional and HIMSS meetings.

Steve Zlotkus currently serves in a marketing/business development role for CAQH’s CORE Initiative. The Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange (CORE) is a voluntary healthcare industry effort building consensus on operating (business) rules for the electronic exchange of healthcare information. As such, he engages with public and private stakeholders on both the national and state level. Mr. Zlotkus has served in various capacities within the healthcare industry over the past 15 years, including health plan account management and pharmaceutical quality control.

 Paul Kleeberg, MD, FAACP, is Medical Director of Clinical Decision Support for HealthEast Care System. He is responsible for designing point of care clinical decision support interventions and resources for HealthEast’s Inpatient Electronic Health Record (EHR) to support patient safety and quality improvement. Dr. Kleeberg has had several years experience implementing EHRs and clinical decision support tools in both the ambulatory and in-patient environments. At HealthEast he is using McKesson’s suite of products. His experience with EHRs began with the implementation of Eclipsys in two hospitals, the implementation of Logician ambulatory product in several clinics and in the creation of patient-oriented web sites for a health plan and a health system. More recently he assisted in a large health system’s transition to the full suite of Epic’s inpatient, ambulatory and personal health record products from other partially implemented inpatient and ambulatory EHRs.

Susan Heichert, is the VP, Health Information and Systems at Allina Hospitals and Clinics in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and leads a team that develops and supports the Electronic Health Record. She received her Bachelors Degree in Nursing from the University of Maryland and a Masters from the University of Minnesota. Susan has been working in Healthcare Informatics for 20 years. She is a HIMSS Fellow and past President of the Minnesota HIMSS chapter.

Robert See currently is Manager, Clinical Decision Support, for Allina Hospitals & Clinics in Minneapolis, MN, a role he has filled since the inception of the program. Previously he managed the Performance Improvement and Benefits Realization teams for Allina's Excellian EMR implementation. Bob has a background as a small group therapist in Mental Health, hospital and system quality program management, and a wide range of clinical and revenue improvement projects within Allina.

Rebekah A. Z. Monson is a senior attorney with Pepper Hamilton LLP, concentrating on healthcare matters. She counsels healthcare providers, hospitals and health systems, long-term care providers, service providers, outpatient diagnostic centers, and other healthcare companies and organizations on the legal issues presented by the implementation of information technologies in the health care industry, including telemedicine, computerized patient records, electronic medical communications and electronic health records, and the associated issues concerning privacy and security, identity theft and compliance. Ms. Monson also assists clients with business formation, corporate planning and structure, governance, contractual relationships, nonprofit corporation issues and business transactions. She is experienced in compliance issues (including HIPAA), fraud and abuse (including the federal Anti-Kickback Statute), Stark and physician self-referral, licensure, payment and other issues that affect health care providers and institutions under federal and state laws.

Terri Jacobsen has extensive experience in strategic systems planning, selection, implementation and evaluation of clinical systems in acute care, ambulatory, EMS, home care environments. Ms. Jacobsen has lead redesigning patient care and clinical systems for several acute care hospitals.

She won the HIMSS Clinical Systems Award in 1996 for promoting Clinical Systems within HIMSS; was on HIMSS Board of Directors 1993-1996; and founded the Midwest Alliance for Nursing Informatics in 1991.

Currently Ms. Jacobsen is the Director and Clinical Informaticist at Edward Hospital in Naperville, Illinois, a Magnet Hospital.

Tom Brennan has over a decade of experience attempting to circumvent, defeat or otherwise thwart client organizations’ internal and external security controls and has contributed to success of start-up's and commercial products. Mr. Brennan initially worked as an SYSOP for an 8-bit 516/BBS, writing code. Since then, Mr. Brennan has built multiple networks and molds applications to meet defined project requirements. He is a trusted member of AccessIT, Data Safe Services, Datek Online, ADP and the United States Marine Corps, and has successfully led security red teams for numerous federal, state and enterprise clients. Today, Mr. Brennan is a team member at WhiteHat Security and serves on the global board of the OWASP Foundation.

Blake Cornell is an IT innovator and developer with over 12 years experience in software and security. He has consulted Fortune 500 companies and various law enforcement agencies with hopes of utilizing technology to ease real world issues. Currently, Mr. Cornell has vested interests in multiple companies providing network and application security as well as VoIP telephony. Additionally, Mr. Cornell developed Security Scraper, a program that harvests over 500 computer security related records daily which he uses to track trends within the security industry. Mr. Cornell is a member of InfraGard, a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector, and OWASP, the premier application security consortium.

Amy Cueva is Founder and Chief Experience Officer, Mad*Pow.  She partners with clients to create strong multi-channel experience strategies, intuitive digital experiences, and streamlined processes. Ms. Cueva built Mad*Pow's user-centered design methodology as the vehicle to synergize business goals, customer needs, and technology requirements. She is the secretary and one of the charter members of the NH UPA, presented at UPA 2009, and was selected as one of Mass High Tech's Women to Watch in 2009.

David Finn serves as Health IT Officer at Symantec where he is responsible for promoting solutions that secure and manage electronic health-related information.  Mr. Finn works closely with healthcare CIOs to create  initiatives tailored to each organization's specific needs.  He received an undergraduate degree from the University of North Dakota and a graduate degree from Angelo State University.  He is both a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).

Lisa A. Gallagher, BSEE, CISM, CPHIMS serves as HIMSS’ Senior Director of Privacy and Security.  In this role, she is responsible for all of the privacy and security programs and volunteer Steering Committee, Task Force and five Work Groups.  As well, Ms. Gallagher provides privacy and security content support for HIMSS’ Federal and State Government relations/advocacy work.  Before joining HIMSS, she served as the Certification Development Director for the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) (www.cchit.org) , where she helped develop the product certification program for electronic health record (EHR) products.  In a past position as Senior Vice President of the Health Information Technology Department at URAC, an independent, nonprofit healthcare accreditation organization, Ms. Gallagher created and managed a series of information technology-focused healthcare accreditation programs, including the HIPAA Privacy and Security Accreditations.  Ms. Gallagher has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, is a certified trust technology evaluator (NSA), and is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) (ISACA). She is also a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS).

Ms. Horowitz has more than ten years of experience in researching healthcare IT adoption and trends. In the last five years she has been extensively engaged in primary market research projects for healthcare IT that have investigated the adoption of electronic medical records, medical devices, security and IT governance structures. She has been highly involved with consulting engagements related to the Electronic Medical Record Adoption ModelSM that evaluates the sophistication of an organization’s clinical IT environments and the effectiveness of the organization’s IT environment related to peer groups. Ms. Horowitz has also published a number of articles that address the trends in the industry. Prior to joining HIMSS Analytics, she held a management role at Dorenfest & Associates. Jennifer has a Masters Degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and Bachelors Degree from Syracuse University. 

Ms. Jones is an informatics professional, with experience in CPOE, EMR, practice management, eMAR, and clinical documentation implementations as well as nursing minimum data sets and outcome measures. Prior to her career in consulting, Ms. Jones worked as a clinical applications and project manager for large healthcare organizations. The experience with working on numerous CPOE projects has positioned Ms. Jones to provide clinical expertise and guidance for Greencastle?s recent CPOE project at Atlantic Health. A nurse for over 16 years, Ms. Jones began her career in critical care nursing at the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Dr. Petron currently holds a dual appointment as the Director of Medical Informatics and Pediatric Hospitalist within Atlantic Health System, located in Northern New Jersey. Prior to his career in medicine, Dr. Petron worked as an Information System consultant with Andersen Consulting.   This exposure to information systems consulting made him at natural choice as the Physician Champion for the Computerized Provider Order Management Project in the Pediatric Department. Dr. Petron went on to initiate the Clinical Excellence Committee, a key group that provides clinical technology guidance for the project.  Since then, Dr. Petron has performed a number of presentations and webinars on the topic of CPOE implementation. These include; InSight (a national McKesson users group) meetings, CHIME College Live webinars, and Healthcare Academy focus groups. Dr. Petron is also a member of the McKesson Informatics Working Group which serves as a product development advisory team to the McKesson Corporation.

Harvey Wright is a Senior Systems Analyst with Excela Health, an award-winning healthcare provider with more than 725 medical professionals across 35 specialties serving the residents of Pennsylvania?s Westmoreland County. In his role, Harvey has played a key role in helping the healthcare network leverage technology to enhance processes as a means for creating greater patient service and business efficiency.

Dr. Aalberg received his BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his MS from the University of Oregon, and his MD from the University of Massachusetts. He completed his Family Medicine residency t the Maine Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program.  After years in  private practice, Dr. Aalberg joined the Faculty of the Maine Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program.  He served as Medical Director and Associate Chief of Family Medicine until he entered his current role as MMC Physician-Hospital Organization Senior Medical Director.  He  served the MaineHealth system as  Medical Director with concentrations in infection control, orthopedic registries and pharmacy.  Dr. Aalberg continues to be involved with the Department of Family Medicine as a practicing physician, preceptor, medical student mentor and Adjunct Faculty. The current PHO leadership role allows participation in health care improvement at the practice, system and state levels.

Natalie Berger is a licensed psychologist and certified Project Management Professional with 20 years of experience in healthcare delivery and 14 years of experience in Healthcare IT. Natalie serves on the HIMSS Ambulatory Steering committee, is CPHIMS certified and an IIE Six Sigma Greenbelt in Healthcare.  Dr. Berger is the recipient of the American College of Mental Health Administration Timothy J. Coakley Leadership Award for 2004 for transformational change in behavioral healthcare. She works primarily now to help position clients with EHR planning and advisory services ensuring the structure, approach and organizational support to achieve meaningful use. Dr. Berger is the author of several articles in peer reviewed publications focusing on change management and achieving clinical outcome improvement using evidenced based best practices; she also serves adjunct faculty for Regis University specializing in organizational performance.

Tracy Callahan is a Registered Nurse & Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE).  Prior to joining the MMC Physician-Hospital Organization she worked for 6 years as a CDE at the Maine Center for Diabetes as well as for the MaineHealth TARGET Diabetes program as a Clinical Nurse Specialist & Improvement Advisor.  Currently she is working as Director, Quality Programs at the MMC Physician-Hospital Organization.  In her current role she oversees the outreach efforts to primary and specialty care practices.  Efforts focus on assisting practices to achieve national clinical recognitions in identified areas, excel in pay-for-performance programs and optimize office workflows, efficiency and patient access.

Jeff Belden MD is a family physician on the faculty at the University of Missouri – Columbia in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, and on the affiliated faculty at the Information Experience Lab. He has a special interest in improving EMR usability, and in the visual display of information. Responsibilities currently include user training, implementations, collaboration in product development with Cerner on their ambulatory EMR, and collaboration with human-computer interaction colleagues in the IE Lab. He serves as Chair of the HIMSS EMR Usability Task Force. His past experiences in photography, film-making, layout and design, typography, and consulting in healthcare software design inform his approach to user-centered design.

Mr. Kansky is Vice President for Business Development for the Indiana Health Information Exchange.  He has worked in the healthcare technology field for 22 years with experience in healthcare information technology, health information exchange, and biomedical technology.  He has served organizations in the role of Chief Information Officer, Director of Information Systems, and Director of Clinical Engineering and has spoken nationally on healthcare IT, health information exchange, and HIPAA compliance.  Mr. Kansky has a BS in Electrical Engineering, an MS in Biomedical Engineering and an MBA.  He currently serves on the Health Information and Management System Society (HIMSS) Healthcare Information Exchange Steering Committee and the board of the Indiana Chapter of HIMSS.

Ms. Daley is a 1996 graduate of Benedictine University (M.B.A.) and a 1979 cum laude graduate of Rush University with a Bachelor?s of Science in Nursing.  She has been a Registered Nurse in Illinois since 1979.  Ms. Daley is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Society of Radiation Oncology Administrators, American Association of Cancer Executives, American Healthcare Radiology Administrators, American College of Healthcare Executives, American Organization of Nurse Executives, American Association of Healthcare Consultants, IL Organization of Nurse Executives, and the PMI Healthcare Special Interest Group.Ms. Daley has authored several papers and been an invited speaker to multiple healthcare events including the HFMA annual meeting, the international symposium of the Society for Radiation Oncology Administrators, and the international symposium of the American Diabetes Association.Ms. Daley holds a BS Nursing and an MBA, served as Clinical Nurse and Healthcare Administrator, and is a HIMSS member. Her current role is Healthcare Project Manager at Integrated Project Management.

With over 31 years of professional project management experience, Larry D. Meyer began his professional career in 1978 with the U.S. Army as a U.S Army Officer serving as a telecommunications officer in Germany and Georgia.  Following seven years of service with the U.S. Army, Meyer began his civilian career working for General Electric, first in the role of Project Manager, and then later as a Program Manager. Following his career at GE, he spent four years with Allied Products in Chicago as a Project Manager leading cross functional teams in the manufacturing of large, multi-million dollar metal stamping machines for the appliance and automotive industries.  Meyer led his department?s ISO/QS 9000 certification efforts. Eleven years ago, Meyer joined Integrated Project Management Company, Inc. (IPM) Currently, Meyer is a Manager of Project Planning and Execution. Meyer holds a Bachelor of Science degree in General Engineering from the United States Military Academy, and a Masters of Business Administration degree from The College of William and Mary.  He is a certified Engineer-in-Training, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB), and holds his Project Management Professional Certification through the Project Management Institute.

Scott Whyte is the Senior Director of Physician and Ambulatory IT Strategy at Catholic Healthcare West (CHW), a 41-hospital system in California, Arizona and Nevada. In his role, Scott oversees IT strategy and advanced IT projects to serve physicians and patients in CHW?s communities. His role includes leading CHW?s IT planning for the ARRA, healthcare reform and health information exchanges. Prior to joining CHW in 2005, Mr. Whyte was Vice President and CIO at Phoenix Children?s Hospital and has spent over 17 years consulting with Capgemini, Siemens Medical Solutions and Ernst & Young to hospitals, health insurers and life sciences companies. He has spoken and worked nationally and internationally on topics, including portals, health information exchanges and genomics, at such venues as Scottsdale Institute, HIMSS regional meeting, other conferences and vendor events. Scott founded and served as Co-Chairman of the HL7 Clinical Genomics Special Interest Group which is working with a team of physicians, biopharmaceutical specialists, bioinformatics specialists and regulators to develop an international data exchange standard for genetic information. He graduated from the University of Arizona magna cum laude with a BSBA in Management Information Systems and magna cum laude with a BA in Economics.

Swapna Chackravarthy is the data warehouse architect for the HART Data Warehouse project at the University of South Florida Health.  A former consultant with extensive database and data warehouse experience, Swapna leads the data warehouse team for USF Health and is responsible for design and development decisions.


Chris Christy has been engaged in healthcare for 26 years, both in industry roles with hospitals as well as healthcare software positions. Prior to SAP, he served as Associate Administrator and Chief Operating Officer at several Hospitals that were part of American Medical International, now known as Tenet Healthcare Corporation. He also served as Vice President for Professional Services at St. Paul Medical Center, a 600 bed tertiary care hospital in Dallas, Texas.

Sidney Fernandes is the Asst CIO for the University of South Florida Health Information Systems.  In his current role he is directly responsible for the implementation of the electronic medical record including RIS/PACS, PERIOP, and practice management systems for USF Health, a multi-specialty practice with over 300 providers.  Experienced in data warehouse design and implementation, Mr. Fernandes also provides direction to the data warehouse team at USF Health and is responsible for operational as well as design decisions for the USF Health data warehouse that now includes over thirty source systems.

Tim Kieschnick leads User Experience and Web Analytics for Kaiser Permanente?s externally-facing web presence.Kieschnick has spent over 20 years developing, implementing, and evaluating programs that put technology-based tools into the hands of health care consumers and purchasers.  He has been a driving force behind kaiserpermanente.org, a comprehensive web-based service that provides customized decision support, communication links, and automated transactions to Kaiser Permanente members and customers.  From same-day lab results to secure doctor-patient messaging, to online sales and account management, Tim ensures that everything is focused on the needs and wants of the end-users.Kieschnick has consulted with a wide variety of groups on the use of technology to support health education, shared decision-making, and access to health services. He is co-author of the Health Informatics Directory and regularly presents to diverse audiences on the role of consumer-oriented technology in health care.Kieschnick?s current work focuses on the use of user-centered design principles and methodologies within an agile development environment.

Valerie M. Sue, Ph.D., is a consultant at Kaiser Permanente who specializes in online survey research.  She manages a range of survey projects for KP and is instrumental in the production several Web Analytics reports.  Prior to working at KP, Sue was an Associate Professor of Communication at California State University, East Bay, where she taught a variety of Communication theory and research methods courses and was director of the Communication Department?s graduate program.  She recently co-authored a book, ?Conducting Online Surveys,? and edited and co-authored a special issue of the journal of the American Evaluation Association focusing on using online surveys in evaluation.  She has also authored numerous journal articles and delivered presentations at the conferences of the International Communication Association, American Evaluation Association, and the American Public Health Association.

Tony has been the PC Support Technician and HIPAA Security Officer at Box Butte General Hospital for two years.  Previously, he worked as IT Manager at another hospital for three years and has over 11 years experience in IT sales, service and support.  He has extensive experience with networking, firewalls, VPN’s, backup systems and servers as well as PC’s.  Tony is currently a leader on a hosted virtual desktop project at BBGH.

Mandy Whaley is network administrator for Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH) and has nearly ten years of experience in healthcare information technology. She began her career at BBGH where she is responsible for maintaining user access and identity management systems for all the healthcare IT systems.Box Butte General Hospital (BBGH) is a 265-employee, non-profit facility, owned by the citizens of Box Butte County, dedicated to serving the needs of residents and visitors alike.  BBGH is accredited by The Joint Commission, the nation?s predominant standards-setting and accrediting body in health care since 1951.

Dr. Vincent Bufalino is president/CEO of Midwest Heart Specialists, a 55-physician cardiology practice in the Chicago area with 15 offices in the western and northern suburbs.  He is board-certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease.  As chairman of the Midwest Heart Foundation, a nonprofit research arm of Midwest Heart Specialists, he oversees about 30 clinical research trials.  He is medical director of Edward Heart Hospital in Naperville, the first of its kind in Illinois.  He is a member of the DuPage County Medical Society.Dr. Bufalino has been an active volunteer for the American Heart Association for more than 20 years at the local, regional and national levels.  He has chaired the Advocacy Coordinating Committee and continues to serve nationally on issues related to public policy. Dr. Bufalino is past president of the AHA?s Greater Midwest Affiliate.  He has also served as a member of the national AHA Board of Directors and Administrative Cabinet.  He has been an active member of the Disease Management Expert Panel and was co-author of a publication redefining disease management. He currently serves on the national Nominating & Awards Committee and the Health IT Working Group. He is chairman of both the Ambulatory Registry Advisory Working Group and the Reimbursement, Coverage and Access Working Group ? the latter being a policy-focused work group of the Advocacy Advisory Team.  His awards include the AHA Physician of the Year in l997, the IANU Michelangelo Award Man of the Year in 1998, the AHA?s first Coeur d?Or Award in 2001, the AHA?s American Heartsaver Long-Haul Award in 2002, the AHA?s Scientific Sessions Chairman?s Award in 2005, and the AHA?s Gold Heart Award in 2008.

Ms. Nicolato is the Director of Quality & Health IT Business Development for the National Center of the American Heart Association. Ms. Nicolato is responsible for the strategic planning, visioning and execution of the Association's Quality and Health IT programs. Ms. Nicolato is currently leading the charge to launch Get With The Guidelines - Outpatient, which is set to launch on November 4th, 2009. The goal of Get With The Guidelines - Outpatient is to improve every CVH patient?s outcomes through widespread application of AHA/ACC primary and secondary prevention guidelines in the United States through data collection, analysis, feedback and QI.Ms. Nicolato also serves as co-chair for the CCHIT's Cardiovascular Workgroup. She previously served as a member of the PHR Workgroup for CCHIT.

Wesley Eastridge, M.D. is a family practitioner in Gate City, Virginia in a small clinic of two doctors and a nurse practitioner.  He is interested in CareSpark and medical informatics, having written and used electronic medical records since 1991.  Educated at Emory University, East Tennessee State University and the Medical College of Virginia, he has served as President of the John Sevier Chapter of the Tennessee Academy of Family Practice in upper east Tennessee and as Chair of the Family Practice Section of the Southern Medical Association.  He is currently the SMA Councilor from Tennessee.  He has just begun submitting data to CareSpark and looks forward to good things to come from this venture.

Liesa Jenkins is known for her skills as a facilitator, resource developer and project manager, serving her community in education, literacy, neighborhood revitalization, civic leadership, cultural arts, recreation, environmental and health issues, diversity and economic development. Under her leadership, CareSpark has developed as a broad-based community-driven effort to improve health through sharing of health information. The organization is recognized at state and national levels as a leader in consensus-driven quality improvement process and model for collaboration.  Ms. Jenkins has served numerous non-profit organizations and has been honored with several recognitions, including 2005 "Health Care Hero." Her public speaking experience includes: NHIN2 Demonstrations, Sept. and Dec. 2008; "Addressing the Business of Health Information Exchange: Real-world Stories," AHIMA 2007; "A RHIO Vision for Public Health Improvement, Biosurveillance and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness," CDC PHIN Conference 2007; and "Privacy & Security," AHIC 2006.

William Perry is a registered nurse, educator, and programmer/analyst who specializes in Internet/Intranet application development and computer mediated education to support clinical and administrative personnel throughout Kettering Health Network.  In addition, he is an adjunct instructor at Wright State University College of Nursing and Health and a frequent contributor to Computers, Informatics, Nursing.

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images

Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books

Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns

Read-to-Me: With the new text-to-speech feature, Kindle can read every newspaper, magazine, blog, and book out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable