Board of Directors

President

James Thomas Sullivan

Chief Technologist, Health - Booz Allen Hamilton

Palmyra, PA

James (Jim) Sullivan is an accomplished healthcare information technology management and advisory executive with over 30 years of US and international experience across the HIT industry. He specializes in organizational and information systems technology strategy and management, and is recognized for his subject matter expertise in enterprise health systems, Health Information Exchange, and public sector health information management.

Over the past 15+ years Jim has served in senior advisory roles to national and regional payor health-plans and provider health systems as the industry evolves through value-based/pay-for-performance reforms, and increasing need for integration and interoperability. He is a thought leader in health systems business process reengineering, systems technology solutioning, and maintains a strong industry network of colleagues and partnerships.

Jim has served with various healthcare IT industry committees including HITRUST, the California Privacy & Security Advisory Board, the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, the Steering Committee of the Keystone Health Information Exchange (KeyHIE), and has held a seat on the Board of Advisors of The Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) and eHealth Innovation Program for the Office of the Trade Commissioner for HIT, Consulate General of Canada.

In 2022, Jim was inducted to the George Mason University Center for Assurance Research and Engineering (CARE) as a Senior Fellow - where he recently addressed an international conference of CIOs hosted by GMU, speaking on the topic Data and Cyber Security in AI and Connected Medical Devices.

Jim is currently part of Booz Allen Hamilton's Health Acct Group, federal / civil healthcare technology public sector practice, and holds the position of Chief Technologist. Prior to joining Booz Allen, Jim was a Partner at TCS - TATA Consulting Service's global healthcare consulting and services integration group. He’s s a very proud father and grandfather, and makes his home, with his wife Jeanine, in rural South Central Pennsylvania, just outside of Hershey.

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President - Elect

Mike Jones

Vice President of Healthcare IT Consulting & Staffing - Bluebird Staffing

Hershey, PA

Mike Jones has been on the Board at HIMSS for a total of 8 years predominantly in roles of Programs, Communications and Sponsorship. Mike oversees and executes a full life cycle approach to helping Healthcare IT partner-clients achieve their goals with IT talent and Project Management. With over 20 years experience, he serves as an expert in Healthcare IT consultancy and staffing for all health systems, regional to large, across the US, providing strong knowledge and expert team of recruiters, project management and technical staff. His niche is providing top talent for EMR builds and implementations including significant success in Epic, as well as Cybersecurity, Automation, Revenue Cycle staffing, and many more.

Mike has served over 200 major clients including health or insurance providers here in the PA region: Highmark, Allegheny Health Network, UPMC, Geisinger, WellSpan, CHOP, Penn Medicine, Lancaster General and many more.

Mike is a graduate of Elizabethtown College and resides, in Hershey, PA, with his daughter, a Senior at Hershey High School.

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Past President

Carissa Stajnrajh, MSW, LCSW

Vice President, Client Management - PopHealthCare / Emcara Health

Pittsburgh, PA

Carissa Stajnrajh is a passionate clinician with exceptional business savvy and strategic innovation. I pride myself on being a good custodian of precious healthcare dollars and resources. I have proven outcomes streamlining and simplifying processes to both save health plans money and improve the member experience.

Social Worker and Certified Addiction Counselor by background. I care deeply about improving the health and wellness of the community at large, one individual at a time. The need for technology to support and scale this important work attracted me to the healthcare technology field.

Integrity above all else. I am a former Insightin client and formed meaningful relationships with the team via our collaboration. They were in the trenches with me and helped me to transform my plan’s Model of Care into something actionable and meaningful for members.

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Secretary

Michael Seavers, Ph.D

Vice Chair of Faculty, Department Chair and Assistant Professor of Healthcare Informatics - Harrisburg University

Harrisburg, PA

Dr. Seavers has a varied background in IT, business, and healthcare spanning many decades. Dr. Seavers began as a programmer analyst at Shared Medical Systems and later at General Electric Aerospace. Dr. Seavers then began working at Book-of-the-Month Club where he managed an IT application department focused on order processing and pick-pack-and-ship algorithms. Later as a Senior Project Manager, Dr. Seavers worked for Hanover Direct during the .COM initial years working with major corporate clients like Sony.

As the .COM industry went bust, Dr. Seavers moved to the healthcare industry. Dr. Seavers worked at Capital BlueCross for nearly two decades. The first decade was as a Senior Manager in the IT department and the second decade heading up the entire claims division and later heading up the enrollment and billing division. Dr. Seavers focus was automation of labor for instance in the way of robotics for healthcare.

After a varied career background and various formal degrees, Dr. Seavers is now teaching full-time for Harrisburg University.

Ph.D. in Public Administration, Penn State University, PA, U.S.A.
Masters in Healthcare Administration, Penn State University, PA, U.S.A.
Masters in Computer Science, Villanova University, PA, U.S.A.
Masters in Business Administration, Penn State University, PA, U.S.A.
Bachelor Science in Computer Science, Shippensburg University, PA, U.S.A. (Minor in Music)

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Treasurer

Ryan Brown

Principal Enterprise Architect - SalesForce

Pittsburgh, PA

Ryan Brown is a Principal Enterprise Architect at Salesforce and has over 20 years experience in healthcare IT. Brown acts as a field CTO, driving digital transformation and developing strategic roadmaps among medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Prior to Salesforce, he was a senior-level architect at Philips & Interlace Health, working with large IDNs and academic hospitals. Brown lives in Pittsburgh, and earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Pittsburgh and his MBA from Boston University. He was involved for 10+ years with the former Western PA HIMSS chapter holding various board seats including president and sponsorship chair.

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Communications

Aleshia Polk

Principal Consultant - Hustle on Sunday

Pittsburgh, PA

As the Founder of Hustle On Sunday®. A Boutique Consultancy for Entrepreneurs, Startups, and Small Businesses. I lead a revolutionary business support organization dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs and small business owners worldwide. My role centers on providing visionary leadership and strategic direction to ensure the delivery of comprehensive services that guide our clients from ideation to expansion. I am committed to our mission of making entrepreneurial success accessible to all, fostering a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem globally.

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Programs Chair

Jordan Dubose

IT Manager, Enterprise Architecture - UPMC

Pittsburgh, PA

Jordan DuBose has been a member of the HIMSS chapter since 2018. He served on the programs committee before being elected Treasurer in 2020. Jordan works at UPMC as an IT manager in the Enterprise Architecture department. Jordan’s team facilitates technology reviews of all network connected technologies expected to be onboarded into the UPMC system. Jordan is a graduate of Duquesne University ’15 (Health Management Systems) and the University of Pittsburgh ’18 (MBA). He has a profound respect and love for healthcare as he is a cancer survivor and benefited directly from the great care health care professionals provide.

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Advocacy & Government Relations Chair

Kelly Hoover Thompson

Healthcare Executive

Harrisburg, PA

Kelly Hoover Thompson is a Healthcare Executive and licensed attorney focused on Transformation and Organizational Development, Nonprofit and Public Boards, Healthcare Leadership, and Mergers and Acquisitions. She currently serves as Government Affairs and Public Policy Lead at ECRI where she focuses on health policy, government relations, and data and interoperability. Most recently, she served as the Government Health Lead with LexisNexis Special Services where she was responsible for building the government health vertical and partnering with federal, state and local governments to advance interoperability across disparate systems. Thompson previously served as CEO of SHIEC to develop and actively advance strategy of the start-up organization. Within months as the CEO of the organization, Thompson more than quadrupled the membership size and revenue of the organization, advanced successful legislation and regulation supporting the industry, and established SHIEC as the international, trusted voice of health information exchange.

Before joining SHIEC, Thompson was Deputy Secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Health. While there, she created a new long-term care partnership in care delivery and oversight. Under her leadership, the eHealth Partnership achieved statewide connectivity, offering electronic health information exchange in every county of the Commonwealth. She also co-founded and led the Commonwealth’s Privacy and Security Practice Group.

Prior to this, Thompson was a senior advocate of policy and regulatory matters for The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. In that role, she advised providers on health policy, regulatory and legislative matters. She established the Annual Organ & Tissue Donation Hospital Campaign and was a primary drafter of the Commonwealth’s deemed status legislation, aimed at ensuring timely standards for health care facility oversight.

Thompson serves as an international leader, advisor and speaker on interoperability and health policy. She serves on the board of the CDC's Center for Health Statistics, the National POLST Technology Committee, the UPMC Patient Safety Committee, and volunteers at her local YWCA, school, and community. She is the mother of four amazing children and a true travel baseball and hockey mom at heart.

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Advocacy Team Lead

John Ritter

Independent Healthcare IT Consultant

Pittsburgh, PA

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Membership / Sponsorship Chair

Camille McWhirter

Executive Director, Health & Life Sciences - NTT Data

Pittsburgh, PA

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Communications Co-Chair

Sophia Moran

IT Systems Analyst, UPMC

Pittsburgh, PA

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Communications Co-Chair

Peter Zullo

IT Systems Analyst - UPMC

Pittsburgh, PA

I have a BS in Health Informatics from Pitt where I learned to use data science and analytics specifically within the scope of the healthcare industry. I now serve on the undergraduate advisory board for this program to provide feedback on relevant coursework based on industry trends.

As of July 2023, I have been working in the Information Technology Rotational program at UPMC. This includes 6-month rotations over 2 years with 4 different teams.

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Member-at-Large

Jake Sarver

IT Systems Analyst, UPMC

Pittsburgh, PA

As a dedicated Systems Analyst at UPMC, I am an integral part of the IT Business Relationship Management team. My journey with UPMC began in the Information Technology Rotational Program, where I gained a diverse skill set and a deep understanding of the IT landscape. This experience laid a solid foundation for my current role, where I focus on optimizing business processes, enhancing IT services, and fostering strong relationships between IT and business units.

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Member-at-Large

Kaleb Linn

IT Systems Analyst - UPMC

Pittsburgh, PA

I have immense experience as an Avionics Technician in the United States Air Force, where I maintain, repair, and inspect aircraft electronic systems and components. I also have a year of experience as an Avionics System Engineer at Lockheed Martin, where I worked on developing and integrating avionics software solutions for military aircraft. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Liberty University, and a degree in Aircraft Armament Systems Technology from Community College of the Air Force. I am also certified in CCNA: Enterprise Networking, Security, and Automation, and CCNA: Switching, Routing, and Wireless Essentials. I am currently pursuing a Master of Business Administration from University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business, with a focus on business management, marketing, and related support services. My core competencies include problem-solving, teamwork, communication, and leadership. I am passionate about leveraging technology and innovation to create value and impact for customers and stakeholders. My goal is to advance my career in the field of engineering and technology.