Rebecca Freeman, PhD, RN, PMP who is the Epic National Nurse Champion for the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), based in Nashville, TN. Dr. Freeman's first career was in the field of Information Technology, focusing on networking and device management, systems analytics, and large-scale IT project management. After 15 years in IT, she made the career change to nursing, graduating with her BSN from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC in 2008. Following graduation, she completed a critical care (Emergency Medicine) nurse residency at Lexington Medical Center and enrolled in the Nursing PhD program at MUSC. Dr. Freeman served in a variety of roles for MUSC, ending her tenure in 2014 as the Chief Nursing Information Officer while maintaining her faculty appointment with the MUSC College of Nursing. Now with HCA in Nashville, she works with all aspects of the implementation of enterprise, interdisciplinary electronic health record (EHR) systems.

Susan Brown, FNP-BC, CPHIMS, is Director of Clinical Informatics & Family Nurse Practitioner at CVS Health, where she has worked for the past decade. Sue currently serves on the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee and is also active in the American Organization of Nurse Executives. In addition to her work in retail pharmacy, Sue has extensive background in nursing and nurse practitioner education, having taught at Duke and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join Judy Murphy, RN, FACMI, FHIMSS, FAAN, Deputy National Coordinator for Programs and Policy at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) under the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. She coordinates federal efforts to assist health care providers and organizations in adopting health information technology to improve care. She also works to promote consumers’ greater understanding and use of health information technology for their own health.

She has a long-standing reputation of patient advocacy and maintaining a “patient centric” point of view, and approaches her work with unyielding energy as well as passion and commitment to the healthcare transformation enabled by technology.

Murphy has served on the American Medical Informatics Association board of directors, and the HIMSS board of directors. She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the American College of Medical Informatics and HIMSS.

She is an advisory member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join, Renee Rookwood, RN, BSN, MS, Clinical Informatics Lead at MITRE. MITRE is a not-for-profit organization that operates research and development centers sponsored by the federal government. MITRE operates FFRDC's–federally funded research and development centers – which are unique organizations that assist the United States government with scientific research and analysis, development and acquisition as well as systems engineering and integration.

Rookwood is a clinician and master’s level graduate in managing health information systems with ten years of experience. She has demonstrated leadership in the national reference implementations of Stage 1 and Stage 2 of Meaningful Use population health clinical quality measures.

She is the task force chair of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

Rookwood is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join Mark Sugrue, RN-BC, FHIMSS, CPHIMS, director, health industries advisory at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston. Mass.  Sugrue has over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. He provides strategic, operational and financial management consulting services to a wide range of healthcare organizations. He has strong expertise in the provider, payer and vendor segments. He is a registered nurse and is a board certified informatics nurse. He has been nationally recognized for his knowledge of health IT, patient safety and information privacy and security. Sugrue serves as faculty for a healthcare information technology course he developed as part of a doctorate in nursing science curriculum.

He is also chair of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

Surgue is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join Mary Beth Mitchell, MSN, RN, BC, CPHIMS, chief nursing informatics officer for Texas Health Resources in Dallas. Mitchell has 10 years of clinical informatics experience.

She has extensive experience with implementing and maintaining EHR systems, specifically nursing scheduling and time and labor systems, working as the clinical expert with human resources. Mitchell has developed hospital Intranet, and put all hospital policies and procedures online, as well as hospital and staff resources. She has passion for using technology to improve patient care, by making resources and information easily accessible to clinicians. This includes education and training, use of an electronic health record, and access to resources to guide patient care.

Mitchell is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join Susan M. Houston, PMP, BSN, MBA, RN-BC, CPHIMS, chief portfolio officer within the Department of Clinical Research Informatics (DCRI) at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Houston’s background includes emergency nursing, clinical informatics, project and portfolio management. She is the author of multiple articles and books related to project management and healthcare informatics. She is a charter member of the PMI Healthcare Community of Practice and a past board member. She has been a member of HIMSS since 2004.Houston has authored HIMSS published books and e-learning courses, including The Project Manager's Guide to Healthcare Information Technology Implementation and Chapter five of “Preparing for Success in Healthcare Information and Management Systems: The CPHIMS Review Guide, 2nd Edition.” In addition to speaking multiple times at the HIMSS annual conference, she has spoken at regional conferences as well as serving on the distance education task force, the career services task force and the nursing informatics committee since 2013.Houston is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

What is the role of a nurse informaticist at a research institution? Are there guidelines to follow in a nursing clinical career to transition to both informatics and to a leadership position? What recommendations would you offer to nurses who want to learn more about informatics or healthcare professionals who want to go to nursing school?

Join Tina Dieckhaus, BSN, RN-BC, director of PCS Informatics at the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. St. Jude’s is one of the world’s premier centers for the research and development of pediatric cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases. St. Jude is the first and only pediatric cancer center to be designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.

Dieckhaus is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

Join Ruth Slater, RN, director of Informatics at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where she has worked for more than 21 years. Slater is the clinical informatics program liaison for the HIMSS Southern California Chapter.

Slater is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems.

She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.

You work in post-acute or long term care—how important is the role of the nurse informaticist in that setting? What recommendations would you offer to nurses who want to learn more about informatics or healthcare professionals who want to go to nursing school? What are the advantages to a career in nursing informatics?Join Maria Arellano, MS, RN, clinical product manager at American HealthTech (a post-acute care software company) and has nearly 30 years' experience in nursing, specializing in post- acute care including direct care, nursing administration, consulting and teaching. She was a quality improvement specialist for Colorado's quality improvement organization and assisted nursing homes and home care agencies with regulatory compliance and quality improvement activities. Arellano has served as an expert witness, providing consultation to attorneys on nursing standards of care and nursing home operations. As clinical product manager, she is responsible for planning and execution of the clinical software design throughout the product lifecycle. Arellano has presented national and statewide workshops on clinical and leadership topics. As vice president of AANAC, she assisted with the development of the MDS certification program, served on a technical expert panel for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and provided policy analysis to the association membership. She is a member of CMS's CARE (Continuity Assessment Record and Evaluation) Technical Expert Panel (TEP) and serves on the Nursing Informatics Committee for HIMSS. Arellano is a member of the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Committee, which was founded in 2003 in response to the increased recognition of the role of the informatics nurse professional in healthcare information and management systems. She is also a HIMSS Nurse Informatics e-Mentor.