Industry Leader, Collaboration and Partner Awards Announced at Forum
11.14.19
By Candace Stuart, Director, Communications & Public Relations
The CHIME Foundation announced winners of three awards on Tuesday, Nov. 5. The awards were presented during the 2019 CHIME Fall CIO Forum in Phoenix, along with the previously announced federal policy leadership award.
CHIME Foundation Industry Leader Award
Mac McMillan, founder and CEO emeritus of CynergisTek, was named winner of the prestigious CHIME Foundation Industry Leader Award, making him one of only 14 people to receive this title in CHIME’s 27-year history.
After a career that spanned more than two decades in defense, McMillan decided to transfer his knowledge and skills as a security leader to the healthcare sector. What he discovered when he co-founded CynergisTek in 2004 was an industry that was woefully unprepared for the cyberthreats that were lurking. Undeterred, he made it his mission to raise awareness and educate CIOs in provider settings through CHIME forums. He is largely credited with bringing healthcare security to its current state of preparedness.
When CHIME launched AEHIS, an association dedicated to security leaders, CHIME turned to McMillan to serve on the inaugural board. McMillan was the keynote speaker at the first AEHIS Summit, testified at CHIME’s invitation before a U.S. House Committee about the HHS Data Protection Act, was instrumental in CynergisTek joining the CHIME Foundation and AEHIS Foundation and supported the CHIME Education Foundation and the CHIME Opioid Task Force. He also has been a frequent speaker and presenter at other association events, is active in university programs to promote careers in cybersecurity and is a contributing author in the book Information Security in Healthcare: Managing Risk, published by HIMSS.
“I am honored and humbled to receive this award,” McMillan said. “When I look back to when I first came into healthcare to where we are today, we are a much different industry with respect to cybersecurity. We are much further along than we were, but we still have a way to go. I think we will get there, though.”
The award recognizes a CHIME Foundation firm representative who has demonstrated exceptional dedication and made outstanding contributions to the healthcare industry, CHIME and the CHIME Foundation. The award was presented during the 2019 CHIME Fall CIO Forum in Phoenix.
CHIME Collaboration Award
Rusty Yeager, senior vice president and CIO at Encompass Health, and Cerner received the 2019 CHIME Collaboration Award for jointly developing a tool that identifies patients who are at risk of returning to acute care and alerts clinicians so they can intervene. Encompass Health, one of the largest providers of post-acute healthcare services in the U.S., partnered with its electronic health records supplier Cerner Corporation®, a global health platform and innovation company, on the project.
The results have been promising. Encompass Health reported its lowest acute-care transfer rate in a decade in March 2018, while simultaneously increasing its discharge to community rate – meaning fewer patients were being sent back to acute-care facilities and more patients were returning to their homes.
“The model was created using the knowledge, skills and capabilities utilized by both organizations to not only provide enhanced care and better outcomes for patients but also to do so in a manner that achieves business success for Encompass Health,” Yeager said.
Inspired by the success of this project, Encompass Health and Cerner launched the Post-Acute Care Innovation Center to develop clinical decision support tools to enhance the post-acute care continuum. Their goal is to design innovations to more effectively and efficiently manage patients across multiple care settings.
“Working alongside Encompass Health in developing a tool to reduce acute care transfers directly aligns with our company commitment to imagine, design and implement intelligent health networks. We are proud to be recognized by CHIME for innovation and collaboration in this space,” said Adam Laskey, vice president, Long Term and Post-Acute Care, Cerner. “We are eager to expand upon this work through the Post-Acute Innovation Center, helping drive ideas that enhance and improve healthcare outcomes and experiences for all.”
The award is given annually to recognize a collaborative effort between a CIO who is a CHIME member and a CHIME Foundation firm who together offer a benefit to the healthcare IT community. The winners are given an opportunity to share their innovative collaboration and its outcomes with CHIME members for possible application in other healthcare environments.
CHIME Foundation Partner Award
First Health Advisory Solutions received the 2019 CHIME Foundation Partner Award for the company’s numerous contributions to CHIME, AEHIS, members and the health IT industry.
When AEHIS, which is CHIME’s affiliated security association, needed experts to help develop a new credential, members on the leadership team at First stepped up to the plate. First’s executive team played a key role in the development and rollout of the Certified Healthcare Information Security Leader (CHISL) credential in 2019 and the CHIME Foundation Certified Healthcare Executive (CFCHE) credential in 2017.
And when CHIME members advocate for security-related policies, First is there offering support and resources. In addition, First offers industry initiatives in medical device security and cybersecurity risk management that align with CHIME ‘s top policy priority topics.
“These efforts have been enhanced in concert with CHIME advocacy, policy involvement, webinar presentations and consistent focus group participation,” said First CEO Carter Groome, who is a member of the AEHIS Board and chair of the AEHIS Education and Professional Development Committee. “We are confident that industry impact has been greatly enhanced through the efforts of CHIME and the platform it has provided First to share such innovations.”
The CHIME Foundation Partner Award is given annually to a CHIME Foundation firm that has made outstanding contributions and demonstrated exceptional dedication and support to the healthcare IT industry.
A Cybersecurity Standout
Theresa Meadows, senior vice president and CIO at Cook Children’s Health Care System, co-chair of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Healthcare Cybersecurity Task Force, vice chair of the Health Sector Council Cybersecurity Working Group and a member of the Malcolm Baldrige Board of Overseers, accepted the 2019 Federal Public Policy Award for CIO Leadership at the forum. The award was announced on Sept. 26 in conjunction with National Health IT Week.
The policy leadership award is given annually to a CHIME member who has demonstrated leadership in educating Congress and administration officials at the federal level about the value of health IT and its role in patient care.