The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has put health care organizations under pressure to adopt electronic medical record systems (EHR) by 2014...
Author - William A. Spooner
William Spooner, most recently named the 2009 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Sharp HealthCare in San Diego, Calif. In addition to the CIO of the Year award, Sharp's IT efforts have been recognized by various industry organizations.
Sharp has been named to Hospitals & Health Networks' "100 Most Wired" list for 11 years in a row. InformationWeek selected Sharp as one of the nation's 250 leading users of business technology for its 2009 InformationWeek 500 list. And, Sharp's IT operations were also a major factor in Sharp earning the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and consistently receiving high rankings on the Modern Healthcare list of most integrated delivery networks. Spooner has been with Sharp HealthCare since 1981 and has served as their CIO for the past 14 years.
He is currently leading Sharp’s efforts to implement physician order entry, a key component of Sharp’s patient safety initiative and the foundation for its emerging electronic medical record. Spooner, an active contributor and leader of both CHIME and HIMSS, served as Chair of the CHIME Board in 2006 and Chair of the CHIME Foundation Board in 2007. He has been a frequent presenter at the HIMSS conference and is active in his local chapter.
A fellow of CHIME, Spooner is also a member of the California Hospital Association Health Informatics and Technology Committee. Most recently, he has volunteered his time to the CHIME Education Foundation Leadership Circle, a group aimed at raising awareness and funds for the CHIME Education Foundation, which provides scholarships and continuing education funds to future and current CIOs.
