NEWS AND NOTES
September 2021
President’s Update
Welcome to Fall! It was a busy Summer for your Chapter Board of Directors, as we welcomed several new Board Members and said farewell to others who retired or moved on to new positions outside the area. (See the Board Update for more details.)
I become President of the Chapter on July 1, following Sue O’Neal who did an outstanding job navigating the challenges we faced due to the Pandemic and the concurrent restrictions on live events. We are pleased to announce that our events are back, with a full schedule of educational and social programs, both in-person and virtual. (See more below.) Most of these events are free for our members and you can register on our website. http://midwestgateway.himsschapter.org/
We are also very excited to have been named HIMSS Chapter of the Year for 2020, recognizing our Advocacy Efforts, Scholarships and Programming! We thank our entire Board for their efforts to make this a reality.
Our Chapter continues to grow, and we now have over 950 members representing healthcare IT professionals and provider systems in the St. Louis Region, including Southern Illinois and Eastern Missouri. We invite you to become involved on a committee or as a sponsor, so please reach out directly to me.
James Hamner, President
Advocacy Activities
Our Advocacy team is excited to announce the use of the HIMSS Legislative Action Center. The Legislative Action Center provides users a quick, and easy way to identify their local, state, and national legislators. Additionally, you are able to sign on to pre-populated letters supporting Health IT bills. These letters are populated based on your profile and can be sign and submitted to your applicable legislator(s).
We encourage you to explore the HIMSS Legislative Action Center and sign letters of support for maternal health and Patient ID related bills:
- Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act (H.R. 959/S. 346) and the Tech to Save Moms Act (H.R. 937/S. 893), and
- Repeal Section 510 from Labor-HHS appropriations bill to support Patient Identification.
Scholarship Awarded
This year our Chapter partnered with HIMSS National to sponsor a $7,500 scholarship for a deserving student from our chapter region. The award went to Ms. Lillian Eversman from Saint Louis University where she is majoring in Health Information Management and is on track to graduate in 2022 with a joint Bachelors in HIM and a Master’s in Health Data Science.
Our chapter is again sponsoring a HIMSS Chapter Foundation Scholarship and the call for scholarship applications is open until Wednesday, October 13th, 2021. Please refer to the HIMSS web site below for further details:
https://foundation.himss.org/Scholarships/Chapter
Chapter of the Year Award
Recently our Midwest Gateway Chapter was awarded “Chapter of the Year” for Medium sized chapters for the Board Year 2019/2020. We are humbled to be recognized by our peers for this award yet proud of the accomplishment as it was a total team effort. Board members James Hamner, Sue O’Neal, and Scott Rich represented the chapter at the HIMSS conference in August where the award was presented.
Events Update
Our Programs Committee has a busy slate of events we are planning for this year. Here is a quick list of what is planned and what is confirmed:
- HIMSS 21 Chapter Dinner – Tuesday, August 10th 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Thanks to our Sponsor Connection.
- Virtual Educational event in October – Leveraging Innovative Technologies to Deliver Highly Specialized Medical Care at Saint Francis Healthcare
- Gateway to Innovation Conference – September 28th
(Gateway to Innovation provided our chapter some passes for the G2I event, please contact Scott Rich at rich@wustl.edu to get a pass)
- Educational event in November – Ergonomics in Healthcare
- Winter Social on December 7th at Bristol
- CISO event at SLU on January 20th
- HIMSS 2022 Membership dinner at Marlow’s Tavern on Tuesday, March 15th
- Educational seminar in late March
- Informatics themed event in April/May
- Summer Social on June 7th at Bristol
Board Update
Chapter Board Members serve one-year terms starting July 1, 2021 and ending June 30, 2022. There are currently 19 Board positions:
President James Hamner, SSM Health, St. Louis
President-Elect Scott Rich, MBA, CPHIMS, SHIMSS, Washington University School of Medicine
Past-President Sue O’Neal, Graybar Electric
Treasurer Haresh Bhatia, PhD, Daughery Business Solutions
Advocacy Co-Chair Mohammad Agha, MD, MHA, SSM Health
Advocacy Co-Chair Lian Collins, MSIM, HCISPP, RHIA, Centene Corporation
By-Laws Committee Chair RJ Croster, MBA, CPHIMS, MCG Health, St. Louis
Secretary Teresa Neal, MHA, RHIA, Saint Louis University
Programs Co-Chair Scott Rich, MBA, CPHIMS, SHIMSS, Washington University School of Medicine
Programs Co-Chair Travis Rath, SSM Health, St. Louis
Membership Chair Brian Boyer, Centene Corporation
Student Liaison. Co-Chair Julie Howe, D-ABMDI, Saint Louis University
Student Liaison, Co-Chair Teresa Neal, MHA, RHIA, Saint Louis University
Publications/Communications
Chris Alexander, Washington University, Department of Radiation Oncology
Sponsorship Chair Damon Broyles, MD, Mercy – St. Louis
Directors-at-Large Lori Sturgil, CIO, Saint Francis Medical Center
Phil Asaro, MD, Washington University School of Medicine
Get Involved
We invite motivated Chapter Members to join our Board Committees to help us with our many activities. To learn more, contact James Hamner, President, at James.R.Hamner@SSMHealth.com
Welcome our New Sponsors
Primary Systems and Snowflake became Chapter Sponsors in 2021. We thank them and our sustaining sponsors for their support of our activities. To learn more about Chapter or Event sponsorships, contact dennis.carson@dccarson.com
SPONSOR NEWS:
Using Snowflake, every health organization can find data-driven approaches to age-old challenges and begin building a data-driven future. Learn more at www.snowflake.com/snowflake-for-healthcare-life-sciences.
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Editor-in-Chief: Scott Rich, MBA
Managing Editor: Dennis Carson, MBA
© 2021 HIMSS Midwest Gateway Chapter