January 19, 2011, WASHINGTON, D.C. – Four champions of health information technology will be honored on January 19 at the annual eHealth Initiative conference in Washington, D.C. in recognition of their commitment to improving thequality, safety and efficiency of health care through the use of information and information technology.
“For the past 10 years, eHI has celebrated individuals and organizations that demonstrate how health IT can be practical, sustainable, and address patient and provider needs,” said Jennifer Covich Bordenick, Chief Executive Officer of the eHealth Initiative. “We are particularly proud of this year’s awardees, who have made innovative strides in health IT. We thank them for their leadership, and honor them for their success.”
The 2011 recipients of the eHealth Initiative Awards are:
* eHealth Public Advocate of the Year
* Jonah Frohlich, California Health and Human Services Agency. As Deputy Secretary of Health Information Technology, Frohlich created a collaborative infrastructure which encouraged broad participation and investment in heath IT, involving philanthropists, communication channels, and industry.
* eHealth Physician Advocate of the Year
* Dr. Harris Frankel, Nebraska Health Information Initiative, Inc. A visionary physician leader, Dr. Frankel brought together a coalition of diverse healthcare stakeholders to fund and support the development of NeHII, years before federal funds were considered for HIEs.
* eHealth Organizations of the Year
* Institute for Family Health. A federally-qualified community health center, the Institute used technology to analyze data and target outreach to patients who needed to obtain care. As a result, nearly 80 percent of established Institute patients had a visit with their primary care providers within the past 12 months. The Institute developed replicable HIT initiatives and made them widely available as a public resource to all health systems.
* Carolinas HealthCare System – LiveWELL Carolinas! Launched a comprehensive health management program to help its employees improve their health risks, change their health behaviors, and reduce the burden of rising healthcare costs. Working collaboratively with WebMD Health Services, Carolinas HealthCare delivered technology-enabled, personalized health management solutions to some 25,000 employees that are helping to drive meaningful reductions in medical claims costs and lost productivity, while simultaneously improving workplace satisfaction and population health.
Individual and organizational nominees for the awards were judged based on their ability to demonstrate a positive andquantifiable impact on the quality of care for patients. Awardees had to demonstrate exceptional leadership and commitment to improving the quality of patient care or practice life through HIT initiatives at the national, regional, state, or local level.
Detailed information about each of the awardees is available on theeHealth Initiative’s conference awards program website: http://ehealthinitiative.org/2011-ehealth-award-recipients.html. To see a list of previous awardees, click here<http://www.ehealthinitiative.org/2010-ehi-award-recipients.html>.
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About the eHealth Initiative: The eHealth Initiative (eHI) is a Washington D.C.-based, independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to drive improvements in the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology.
Working with its 210 member organizations, eHI works to create a world where consumers, health care providers, and those responsible for population health will have readyaccess to timely, relevant, reliable and secure information and services through an interconnected, electronic health information infrastructure to support better health and healthcare.
