Too often, I’m forced to use the pronoun “he” when discussing the luminaries of health IT. Certainly, that’s partly because health IT is a boy-geek world, but we mustn’t forget the female powerhouses in the biz.
For example, here’s some samples from a list of 12 HIT women you should know, courtesy of www.hitconsultant.net.
- Judith Faulkner: Love her or hate her (and experienced readers know where I stand!) Faulkner is perhaps the most powerful woman in health IT — maybe in health IT period! Between 1979 and today, she’s built a company which stands like a Colossus astride hospital IT, and you’ve gotta admit, that’s one hell of an accomplishment.
- Halle Tecco: Tecco is co-founder of Rock Health, a seed-stage business accelerator focused on health startups. As if the buzz factor alone wasn’t enough to earn her a spot — Rock Health is cooler than Elvis these days — she’s managed to draw funding from Microsoft, Qualcomm, Quest Diagnostics and Genentech, a quatra-fecta cutting across enterprise IT, wireless, clinical reference labs and biotech.
- Tiffany Crenshaw: Crenshaw, president and CEO of health IT recruiting firm Intellect Resources, is not just any smile and dial recruiter. She created a new event called Big Break, a one-day audition process allowing hospitals to hire a 200+ person training and go-live team in just one day. Now that’s a turnaround.
To catch the other nine, which include everyone’s favorite HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius, visit the site here.
By the way, if I had made the list, I would have included any of the female senior leaders from big, bad health information network Availity; Mary Pat Whaley, leader of Manage My Practice; and just about any of the CIOs or CNIOs of five+ hospital IDNs. It’s categories like these where I expect to see real growth, especially the CNIO/VP of nursing informatics slot.
What do you think?