Featured Speaker(s)

Ruth Carr: Senior Deputy General Counsel, State Health Information Technology Coordinator,Georgia Department of Community Health

Ruth Anne Carr, J.D., LL.M. serves as the Senior Deputy General Counsel of Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) and is the State Health Information Technology (HIT) Coordinator. She co-chairs the national Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) Committee on Privacy Breach Notification. She also serves as the HIPAA Privacy and Security Officer for DCH. As the State HIT Coordinator, Ruth provides leadership and coordination across federally funded state programs, including leading the collaboration necessary for a statewide health information exchange (HIE) and supporting the development of the state’s Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentives Program. Her role is to develop and advocate for HIT strategies to achieve statewide goals, including collaborating with public and private health care stakeholders, leveraging state and federal program resources, and managing federal health care funding for economic stimulus for Georgia.Ms. Carr is an attorney with extensive experience in law practice, in both public service and private practice, and is a former Administrative Hearing Officer. She served as an Elected Member, Board of Governors of National State Mental Health Forensic Directors Association. Since 2001, Ms. Carr has provided training in health information security and privacy. Her speaking appearances on the topic have taken her to state, national and international conferences.

Ginny Meadows: Executive Director Stimulus PMO, McKesson Provider Technologies

Ginny Meadows, R.N., is the executive director, program office for McKesson Provider Technologies. In this role, she is responsible for regulatory interpretation, program initialization and execution, and critical review of market position and product development strategy related to the American Recovery and Reimbursement Act and other healthcare regulatory topics. Ginny has more than 25 years’ experience in clinical informatics and health care information technology, with an emphasis in the areas of product management, strategic planning and analysis, and knowledge management.

Prior to her current role, Ginny served as the director of Clinical Informatics at Shared Health, where she was responsible for determining clinical product strategy, overseeing the use of relevant and standardized clinical content and terminologies; and providing clinical decision support services, quality metrics and performance analytics. She has also held key positions in product management and development and customer relationship management with leading healthcare IT companies including Carestream Health, Inc, (formerly Kodak Health Group), WebMD, and previously with HBOC/McKesson. Ginny began her healthcare informatics career at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (formerly Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital), as the clinical coordinator in information services. She was recently appointed to the HIMSS HIE Steering Committee, and also serves on both the Standards and Public Policy Committees for AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) NIWG (Nursing Informatics Working Group); and the Board of Directors of the Georgia HIMSS Chapter.

Denise Hines: Senior Vice President, Government Services & Education, HealthNovation

Dr. Denise W. Hines possesses 21 years of extensive and varied experience in different healthcare organizations such health systems, physician offices, home health, technology vendors, consulting, state government, and revenue management. She is nationally recognized for building service and results-oriented organizations with proven results. She possesses a passion for the widespread integration of technology and healthcare. As the Senior Vice-President for Government Solutions, Denise’s focus is on identifying and analyzing emerging regulatory issues and designing and executing strategies for recommended actions. She participated on Georgia’s HIE Strategic and Operational Plan writing team and serves as the co-chair of the HIE Governance Committee. She is also serving as the Director of Marketing, Outreach and Education for the Georgia Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (GA-HITREC).Denise holds her bachelors, masters, and doctorate degree in Health Administration and Policy. For the past seven years, Denise has educated eager minds regarding healthcare and technology. She is a member of the faculty at the University of Phoenix Online and Capella University and teaches Health Care Information Systems, Health Care Policy, Introduction to Graduate Studies, Health Care Delivery Systems and IT Project Planning. She is also President-Elect for Georgia HIMSS, a member of National HIMSS, the HIMSS Ambulatory Systems Workgroup, and the multi-state Medicaid electronic health records workgroup.

Cigdem Delano: Chief Information Officer Morehouse School of Medicine

Cigdem Delano is the Chief Information Officer of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), a private, independently chartered medical school committed to eliminating health disparities through its academic, research, and clinical programs.

In September 2008, Ms. Delano assumed responsibility for creating and implementing an information technology (IT) strategy to address MSM’s institution-wide needs. Critical initiatives underway are enterprise-wide implementations of Electronic Health Record, practice management, biomedical informatics, and ERP systems. These initiatives follow the complete overhaul of MSM’s IT infrastructure through upgrades to best of breed technologies, system and storage consolidations, and virtualization. Prior to MSM, Ms. Delano served as the Deputy Executive Director of the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA), an organization created by the Georgia General Assembly in 2000 to transform the use of IT in government to industry standards.Prior to GTA, Ms. Delano was with IBM for over 15 years. Her responsibilities ranged from data center operations to project and customer account management with international scope. She was a recipient of the 2006 CIO Ones to Watch award from CIO magazine and CIO Executive Council, a national honor given to only 20 people. Ms. Delano was a finalist for Women in Technology’s 2006 Women of the Year in Technology Award. She also was selected by the Project Management Institute’s PM Network magazine as one of 25 Influential Women in Project Management. Most recently, she was a finalist in the Georgia CIO Leadership Association’s 2010 Georgia CIO of the Year Awards

Dee Cantrell: Chief Information Officer, Emory Healthcare

Dee Cantrell is the Chief Information Officer at Emory Healthcare, Inc. in Atlanta GA. Emory Healthcare is a large integrated academic healthcare system committed to the highest level of care for patients and families, educating healthcare professionals for the future, pursuing discovery research and clinical innovation and serving the community. As the clinical arm of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University, Emory Healthcare is the largest, most comprehensive health care system in the state of Georgia.In addition, Ms. Cantrell has recognized as one of the key leaders in technology by “Women in Technology”, an affiliate of The Technology Association of Georgia and by the Computerworld’s Search for Heroes. Moreover, Ms. Cantrell was awarded the CIO of the year by the Georgia CIO Leadership Association (GCLA) for 2009 and is currently a Board Member of the Georgia HIMSS.Ms. Cantrell earned her master’s degree in Organizational Management from Capella University and her bachelor's degree in Nursing from Brenau University. She worked as a registered nurse in multiple capacities before becoming involved in healthcare information technology. She came to Emory in 1994 as director of Patient Services for the Emory University Hospital and then moved the following year in 1995 to become a Senior Business Analyst in the Emory Healthcare Information Services Division. Ms Cantrell was promoted to Director of Client Service in 1996 followed by the promotion to the Director of Client and Application Services in 1997. She was promoted to the Executive Director of Emory Healthcare Information Services in 1998, and was again promoted to the Chief Information Officer in 2000.

Deborah Cancilla, Chief Information Officer, Grady Health System

Deborah Cancilla served the last 14 years at the Erie County Medical Center, Corp. (ECMC) in Buffalo, N.Y. in various capacities in the IT department, including seven years as CIO. During her tenure at ECMC, Cancilla was recognized as a leading expert in health information technology. Through her efforts, the department received a first place institutional ranking for excellence in service and support, and she positioned ECMC within the top 10 percent of national healthcare systems for use of technology and clinical systems. She also played a lead role in development of the WNYHealthenet RHIO (regional health information office) for sharing patient clinical and financial data. Most recently, in her SVP, CIO role at Grady Health System, Cancilla has completed a wholesale replacement of the Health System’s network, transitioned the facility to Voip, updated the desktop computing platform, and completed installation of EPIC’s clinical and revenue software in a big bang go-live. Grady now is positioned with few facilities nationwide who have achieved HIMSS level 6 recognition.

Cancilla also implemented a wireless network and Internet café at ECMC, facilitated a major PBX upgrade and implemented a bar code and wireless transmission technology on nursing units for EKG, bedside medication administration and Alaris pump updates to assist with proper patient identification and safety. Cancilla has worked in the banking industry and for the Internal Revenue Service. She earned a master's degree in global business and a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, both from Daemen College in Buffalo.