Two leading professional organizations in healthcare informatics—the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, an association of hospital CIOs, and the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, an association of physicians working in applied medical informatics—have agreed to share educational opportunities, do joint policy advocacy work and provide AMDIS access to CHIME's administrative support services.
“We have tremendous admiration for AMDIS and its members, and view this as a way to bring the industry's physician IT leaders the added support to thrive in this momentous era of transformation,” said Russell Branzell, CHIME President and CEO. “Physician leadership is a critical success factor for health information technology initiatives, and both boards are dedicated to providing the resources to help them facilitate collaboration between IT and the medical community and achieve the clinical objectives of their organizations.”
“It's a partnership and a relationship that's actually been going on for years without the formal agreement,” said AMDIS President Dr. William Bria, who will become executive vice president of medical informatics and patient safety for CHIME and will serve as the primary liaison between the two organizations. Bria will remain chairman of the AMDIS board of advisers.
“Bill is an exceptional individual known throughout our industry for his straightforward and innovative leadership, as well as his unwavering commitment to AMDIS and the members it serves,” CHIME Board Chair Charles Christian said in a news release. “We feel extremely fortunate to have him on board and are confident Bill's outstanding success and deep industry knowledge will help drive our vision, growth and value-creation initiatives moving forward.”
The symbiosis will be particularly important in public policy advocacy, said AMDIS co-founder and CEO Richard Rydell.
“Where they (CHIME) will help us out, they're connected in D.C.,” Rydell said. “They have an office there. When it comes to decisions on policy, CHIME thought there was a weakness where they didn't speak for clinicians.”
CHIME, formed in 1992, served as a model for the organizational structure of AMDIS, which launched in 1997, said Rydell, who was a founding board member and vice-chairman of CHIME.
Rydell and Bria served as faculty on previous CIO boot camps sponsored by CHIME. CHIME's CEO, Russell Branzell, has been a frequent presenter at AMDIS' annual meeting in Ojai, Calif., including serving as faculty on its first CMIO boot camp last year. AMDIS claims more than 2,800 physician members, 250 associate members and 40 provider organization members. CHIME says it has 1,400 CIO members and over 140 healthcare IT vendors and professional services.
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