Nigrin, Richardson among Leaders Named to CHIME Board

Earlier this week, CHIME announced its officers for 2021, as well as four new Board of Trustees members.

The three new officers are: Tanya Townsend, SVP and CIO, LCMC Health (Board chair); David Chou, CIO, Luye Medical Group (secretary); and Darren Dworkin, CIO and SVP of Enterprise Information, Cedars Sinai (treasurer).

As announced previously, John Kravitz, SVP and corporate CIO at Geisinger Health System, will serve as 2020 Board chair, effective Jan. 1, 2020. Sheree McFarland, Division CIO, West Florida Division at HCA, will assume the secretary role, and Rusty Yeager, SVP and CIO, Encompass Health, will step in as treasurer. The current Board Chair, Shafiq Rab, MD, will transition to the position of CHIME Foundation Board Chair.

In addition, four health IT leaders were named to the CHIME Board of Trustees, effective January 1, 2020:

• George (Buddy) Hickman, EVP, System Chief Information & Chief Analytics Officer, Albany Medical Center
• Daniel Nigrin, MD, SVP & CIO, Boston Children’s Hospital
• Sarah Richardson, VP of IT Change Management, OptumCare
• Ajay Kapare, VP of Marketing and Strategy, ELLKAY

“We are thrilled that Buddy, Daniel, Sarah and Ajay will join the board next year,” said CHIME Board Chair Shafiq Rab, MD. “They are all strong leaders who represent a diverse set of healthcare organizations.” Hickman brings experience from the academic world, Nigrin is a physician and a trained medical informaticist, and Richardson is “driving change in her organization with her team- and relationship-building skills,” he added, while Kapare “offers very timely perspective on healthcare’s growing connectivity.”

Hickman is responsible for overseeing all informational technology, biomedical engineering and data analytics activities throughout Albany’s academic health science system, hospitals, physician faculty practice and medical college. A member of both the CIO Boot Camp and Speakers Bureau faculties, Hickman is a former CHIME Board chair, former CHIME Foundation Board chair, and former CHIME Education Foundation Board chair. In 2012, he was named the CHIME-HIMSS John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year.

Nigrin was appointed director of clinical computing at Boston Children’s in 2000 and CIO in 2001. In addition to his role as CIO, he is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, a senior member in the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program and a practicing member of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Division of Pediatric Endocrinology. He is board certified in pediatric endocrinology and medical informatics.

Richardson began her career in the hotel and casino industry in Las Vegas before transitioning to healthcare at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas. While working at HCA, she was promoted three times, with her last position as Division CIO. At OptumCare, she focuses on developing innovative models of healthcare delivery that support coordinated care by building collaborative relationships across the continuum. She joined CHIME in 2010 and is a CIO Boot Camp faculty member, a Speakers Bureau faculty member and a CHIME Media Liaison.

Kapare develops and drives strategic industry, business and marketing relationships at ELLKAY and has participated in the ONC for Health IT’s Meaningful Use and Health Care Policy meetings in Washington, D.C. His previous positions include head of marketing at CompuGroup Medical US, director of global marketing at Sunquest Information Systems and product manager for Sunquest’s Business Analytics and Radiology solutions.