ADVANCE for Health Information Executives specializes in coverage of emerging e-health and computer-based patient record technologies. Established in 1997, ADVANCE boasts its annual product directories and buyers guides including the annual December Buyers Guide, Mobile Technology Buyers Guide and Financial Information Systems Review.

Published monthly, each issue presents articles written by leading health care executives and consultants who discuss practical solutions and strategies for top-priority information systems challenges. Affiliations with major industry professional associations and an editorial content agreement with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) contribute invaluable, up-to-date and relevant articles about this dynamic industry.

About the Editors

Frank Irving is editor of ADVANCE for Health Information Executives. He is responsible for all editorial content for ADVANCE's print and online editions, and is the primary contact for article submissions.

Frank has more than 20 years experience in trade journalism, all with high-tech and health care publications, and has won editorial honors including the Neal Award (best series of articles) and Computer Press Award (best computer newspaper).

He holds a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Virginia .

E-mail him at firving@advanceweb.com.

Bob Mitchell is managing editor of ADVANCE for Health Information Executives. He works closely with health care CIOs and senior-level IT executives in acquisitions articles for publication. He is the primary contact for the magazine's News Monitor, Product Profile and Executive Pace departments, and contributes frequently to the magazine's Web site, blog and e-newsletter. Bob currently serves as a judge for the annual Microsoft Healthcare Users Group Innovation Awards.

Prior to ADVANCE, Bob  was an account executive at National Risk Management, a third party administrator in Valley Forge, Pa. , and prior to that he was a technical writer in the company's software division, NRM Consulting. Prior to these positions, Bob was a reporter and the religion page editor at The Daily Mail in Catskill, N.Y .

When he's not writing about IT topics, Bob enjoys short story writing, model railroading, lifting weights and cheering on the Boston Red Sox.  

Bob holds a B.S. degree in Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. He studied theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia .

E-mail him at rmitchell@advanceweb.com.

Mark McGraw is associate editor of ADVANCE for Health Information Executives. He writes a wide range of feature articles for print and the Web, addressing topics that affect our readership, working closely with CIOs at large hospitals to discuss issues important to them and their peers. Mark is also responsible for acquiring peer-written articles from health IT executives as well as editing a variety of contributions from other sources. Mark is also a frequent contributor to the magazine's Web site, staff blog and e-newsletter.

Before joining ADVANCE, Mark was a staff writer at Human Resource Executive in Horsham, Pa., where he covered a variety of topics relevant to human resource executives at large U.S.-based companies and wrote a monthly column focused on staffing and recruitment issues. Mark also spent time as the membership/publications coordinator at the Upper Bucks Chamber of Commerce in Quakertown, Pa., and at the sports desk of The Intelligencer in Doylestown, Pa. In his spare time, Mark enjoys playing softball, cooking, music, following the Phillies and spending time with family, friends and his basset hound Kirby.

Mark holds a B.A. degree in Professional Writing from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

E-mail him at mmcgraw@advanceweb.com
 
ADVANCE Editorial Board

Executive Council (Bios)

William "Buddy" Gillespie is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at WellSpan Health, an integrated delivery system based in York, Pa. WellSpan Health serves the health care needs of more than 500,000 people in south central Pennsylvania.

Mr. Gillespie joined WellSpan Health in 1996 as Vice President and CIO, coming from a position of Vice President of Information Services at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.  Prior to that he was Director of Hospital Applications Developmentat Hospital Corporation of America in Nashville.  As CIO of WellSpan he was responsible for the strategic planning and implementation of information technology to support integrated applications consisting of financial, clinical and administrative systems.  

In September of 2008, Gillespie was appointed Vice President and CTO at WellSpan. In the CTO role, he is responsible for the strategic and tactical efforts surrounding the selection, implementation and support of core technologies to support the business and clinical systems at WellSpan.

Phil Fasano is senior vice president and CIO at Kaiser Permanente (KP). He is a member of KP's National Leadership Team and the Kaiser Permanente Partnership Group, as well as leader of KP-IT. Fasano came to Kaiser Permanente from Capital Sourcing Group, a consulting company he founded to serve Fortune 500 companies and the federal government. Before that, he was senior vice president and chief business information officer with Capital One Financial Group.

John D. Halamka, MD, MS, is CIO of the CareGroup Health System in Massachusetts, where he is responsible for all clinical, financial, administrative and academic information technology serving 3,000 doctors, 12,000 employees and one million patients. He also serves as CIO and Associate Dean for Educational Technology at Harvard Medical School, Chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network (NEHEN), CEO of MA-Share, Chair of the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), CIO of the Harvard Clinical Research Institute and a practicing emergency physician. Babson College voted Halamka Technology Leader of the Year.

Dennis L'Heureux serves as Senior Vice President for Planning and CIO of Rockford Health System, located in Northern Illinois and recognized as a Most Wired health care provider for seven of the past eight years. L'Heureux was named to ComputerWorld's premier 100 CIOs in 2006 and won a Best in Class Award for a PACS Implementation at Computerworld's 7^th Annual IT Leaders Conference. He is a Fellow and Lifetime Member of HIMSS and a member of CHIME.

L'Heureux graduated from Northeastern University in 1974 with his Bachelors in Industrial Engineering and in 1977 with his Masters in Engineering Management.

Mac McClurkan is Vice President/CIO at HealthEast Care System in St. Paul, Minn. Previously, Mr. McClurkan was Vice President and CIO of Bronson Healthcare Group in Kalamazoo, Mich. McClurkan is a member of the American Society for Quality, HIMSS, CHIME and the Malcolm Baldridge Board of Examiners. He earned his Bachelors from the University of Tennessee and MBA from the University of Evansville.

George T. Hickman is Executive Vice President and CIO of Albany Medical Center in northeastern New York, which serves as the regional resource for medical care in areas such as trauma, pediatric, cardiovascular and neurosciences. The center has received the National Research Corporation's Consumer Choice Award for the ninth consecutive year, earned accreditation status for its bariatric surgery program from the American College of Surgeons and won performance awards in three categories (coronary artery disease, stroke and heart failure) from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. Hickman is Board Chair and a Fellow for HIMSS and a charter member of CHIME. He holds a BS and MS in engineering.

Scott Joslyn serves as Senior Vice President and CIO for MemorialCare in Southern California, a five-hospital system with 1,500 inpatient beds and approximately 10,000 employees. MemorialCare has been a Most Wired award winner for the past seven years.  In 2006, ComputerWorld named the system one of the top 100 places to work in IT. Joslyn and the executive team at MemorialCare were named the Top Leadership Team in the Nation in 2005. Joslyn is an active member of both HIMSS and CHIME and co-founded and remains the chairperson of CHIEF, a southern California healthcare CIO information-sharing group.

Joslyn holds a Doctor of Pharmacy Degree from the University of the Pacific, and a Master of Business Administration from UCLA.

Charles E. Christian is the Director of Information Systems and CIO of the Good Samaritan Hospital, a 99-year-old free-standing, acute care, community hospital in southwest Indiana. It received the McKesson VIP Award in 2004 and was identified as a Solucient Top 100 Hospital - Quality Improvement Leader in 2005, listed as Most Wired (small and rural) in 2004 and 2005, and a 2006 recipient of the VHA Leadership Award for Clinical Excellence. Good Samaritan Hospital also recently earned the Gold BKD Award of Excellence in Indiana.

Christian is a Fellow of HIMSS and serves as the chair of HIMSS Board of Directors and serves on the Analytics Board of Directors. Christian serves as the board liaison for the Enterprise Integration and Privacy & Security Steering Committees. He is a Fellow and charter member of CHIME and served on the CHIME BOD in 2003-2004. Christian is a charter member of the re-established Indiana Chapter of HIMSS and servers as a member of the board of directors. 

Christian holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Lacrosse University. 

Gene M. Shaw, CPHIMS, FCHIME, is the Vice President, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Yuma Regional Medical Center, Yuma, Ariz, a 333-bed, acute care, not for profit, sole community provider. He is certified as a Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems and is an active member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, and the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society. Shaw is the current chairman of the Technology Consortium of the Yuma Chamber of Commerce.

Shaw holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Loyola University of Chicago and a Master of Science in Administration from DePaul University.Frank Scafidi is the CIO at Georgetown Hospital System in Georgetown, S.C.. He previously held the the position of Vice President and CIO at Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare. Scafidi began his career in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania Computer Center. Since then, he was worked for Thomas Jefferson University Hospital as Director for Applications, for Johns Hopkins Hospital where he was responsible for systems integration and applications development and served as CIO for Upper Chesapeake Health System in suburban Baltimore. He also served as the President of the Maryland Chapter of HIMSS in 1996.

He holds a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and Finance.

Michael Reandeau serves as Vice President of Information Systems and Chief Information Officer for Palo Alto Medical Foundation for Health Care, Research and Education, a not-for-profit northern California health care organization that specializes in both multi-specialty group practice of medicine and outpatient medicine. In 2006, Palo Alto Medical Foundation's Palo Alto Medical Clinic and Camino Medical Group were ranked among the top-performing medical groupsfor preventive care, patient satisfaction and use of information technology by the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA).  Reandeau's career includes senior IT leadership roles at Kaiser Permanente, Swedish Health Services and Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, as well as consulting for Amazon.com.  Reandeau co-founded CHITA, a Seattle, Wash.-based organization to improve the effectiveness of the health care system.

Sue Schade serves as the Chief Information Officer for Brigham andWomen's/Faulkner Hospitals (BWH) in Boston, a 747-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare System. Brigham and Women's Hospital has received the 2006 National Quality Health Care Award from the National Committee for Quality Health Care (NCQHC), and has been recognized as one of the top three academic medical centers in clinical quality and safety by the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC). Leapfrog added BWH to its Top Hospitals List for implementing hospital quality and safety practices. BWH was inducted into the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame for Executing Strategy for achieving breakthrough performance results and has been chosen for the U.S. News and World Report Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals for 13 consecutive years.

Schade served on the CHIME Board from 2004 to 2006 and is presently the chair of the newly formed CHIME Education Foundation Board. She holds an MBA degree from Illinois Benedictine College in Lisle, Ill.

Timothy Stettheimer, PhD, is vice-president and CIO at St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham, Ala.  St. Vincent's is the flagship digital hospital for the St. Louis-based nonprofit Ascension Health Inc.  Dr. Stettheimer also serves as ergional CIO for Ascension's southeast region. He received the John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year Award and the Birmingham Business Journal's Top 40 Under 40 Award in 2006. Dr. Stettheimer is a Diplomat with the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) as well as an active member of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and the Society for Information Management (SIM).  He has also been certified as a professional in healthcare information management systems (CPHIMS) as a member of the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS).  His Ph.D. was earned from the University of North Texas, focusing on the field of medical informatics.

Michael Minear is CIO at UC Davis Health System in Sacramento, Calif.
Minear is a national leader in health care information technology. He has an extensive record of leading transformations of large, complex organizations in the use of modern information technology.

As a member of the executive team at UC Davis Health System, Minear directs about 500 staff members and oversees an overall annual operating budget of $50 million, plus a yearly capital budget exceeding $10 million. He is responsible for developing and executing the technology strategy that supports the health system's four missions of clinical care, research, education, and community engagement.

Tom Tabor is senior vice president and CIO at Highmark in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Greg Walton is CIO at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Calif. Previously, he was vice president and CIO at Carillion Health System.