President
Carissa Stajnrajh
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.
President-Elect
James Thomas Sullivan
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 a Partner in TATA Consultancy Services’ (TCS) Global Life Sciences and Healthcare Consulting & Services Integration practice. 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.
Secretary
Barry Boyer
Currently Barry is an instructor at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in the Information Systems Engineering and Management graduate program. His focus areas are Healthcare IT, Information Technology Quality Assurance, Information Technology Management, and Educational Technology.
Barry is a member of the National HIMSS organization and served over eight years on the local chapter board. As a local chapter officer, he has attended HIMSS conferences during that time and served on local chapter event committees. He also maintains memberships in CHIME and HDI. He presented a lecture on IT Governance and IT Quality principles at a national HDI (www.thinkhdi.com) conference in Las Vegas.
Also, Barry holds a current CPHIMS certification as well as two ITIL certifications, a certification as a Service Desk Director, and a certification in IT Knowledge Management. Barry recently completed a Post Masters’ Certificate in Advanced Studies in Smart Enterprises and is working on a Doctorate in Educational Technology at Central Michigan University. A joint paper from Central Michigan University “COVID-19’s Impact on Online and Blended Learning: Motivation for Returning to Education" is published at the CICE-2022 conference June 2022.
Barry has many years of experience in Information Systems and Technology, serving in various management roles for over the last forty years in various market sectors, including several types of Healthcare, Manufacturing, and Consulting. He served as an IT Operations Manager, IT Program Director, and Interim CIO during his career.
He served a 6-year term on the Church Council of Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church (Marion, PA) from 2004 to 2010 with 3 years as Council President. Barry was off for one year and serving 2011 -2017 serving as President of Church Council. He (again) left council in 2017 due to term limits. For a third time Barry returned in 2018 (to present) as President of church council again.
Treasurer
Jordan Dubose
Jordan DuBose has been a member of the Western PA 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.
Member-at-Large
Debra M. Wolf, PhD, MSN, BSN, RN, FAAOHN
Debra Wolf is a Professor of Health Informatics and Nursing. Currently she is the Founding Academic Director for the Health Informatics Program and Academic Review Committee Chair for School of Professional Studies at Wake Forest University. Dr. Wolf is also an independent healthcare informatics consultant supporting higher education, healthcare institutions and IT vendors integrate IT related concepts, theory, and innovative technology. Dr. Wolf has over 40 years’ experience within the healthcare arena. She earned her Baccalaureate and Master of Science degree in nursing from La Roche University and a PhD in Nursing from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Wolf serves as an accreditation evaluator for the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education who accredits nursing programs and is an Advisory Board member for Vincentian Collaborative System, UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing and Western Pennsylvania HIMSS Chapter.
Dr. Wolf’s research agenda explores patient centered care, use of technology in a health setting and the learning language needs of international students. Her area of expertise focuses on change management, process redesign and use of social media/technology in supporting clinicians and patients. Dr. Wolf has published numerous articles, book chapters and coauthored books titled Social Media for Nurses: Educating practitioners and patients in a networked world and Introduction to Computers for Healthcare Professionals (7th edition) which was awarded second place in the informatics category for AJN’s book of the year in 2021. She has presented at international, national, and local conferences.
Member-at-Large
Michael Seavers
Member-at-Large
Jamie Wyatt
Committee Chairs
Advocacy Liason
John Ritter
Communication/Website Chair
Kellyn Wilhide
Program / Website Chair
Michael Jones
Sponsorship Chair
John Kalafut
John founded Asher Orion Group LLC (AOG) to make a tangible difference to those who are pushing the boundaries of improving healthcare. As CEO of AOG, he advises innovators, vendors, and healthcare providers in Medical Artificial Intelligence. His deep clinical research roots combined with his expansive commercial experience gives him a unique understanding of the imaging AI market’s pain points and adoption hurdles. Fund managers and investors seek John’s advice on market insights, while key players and adopters of medical AI seek his product development guidance, solution architecture and healthcare digital transformation. He supports innovators – companies and health systems -with scientific and clinical development support.
He is the principal inventor or co-inventor on 39 US patents and several pending applications. Many of his inventions are used in practice around the world, across nuclear medicine and radiological agent delivery, diagnostic and interventional cardiology devices, and patient monitoring systems. His work has also been published in medical, engineering and healthcare journals and has presented 25 abstracts or posters at conferences throughout his career and has been an invited lecturer, panel participant or podcast guest dozens of times.
Before founding AOG, John was Chief Scientist of Informatics Research at GE Healthcare. His stewardship of an AI-enabled, diagnostic pathway solution led to their first Breakthrough Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration. He led architecture of learning platforms and applications co-created by GE Healthcare and its clinical partners at world-renowned academic health systems, including Mass General Brigham Healthcare and Boston Children’s Hospital. John was instrumental in the founding of the UK’s National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging (NCIMI) and was a co-Principal Investigator on the Innovate UK, Digital Pathology and Diagnostic (DART) initiative, a multi-organizational consortium aimed at developing new evidence-driven pathway management tools for lung cancer screening.
Prior to GE, he held various development, research and innovation roles across medical device and pharmaceutical organizations. John received a PhD in Electrical/Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Electrical Engineering with a focus in bio-signal processing and computational neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering from the University of Scranton. He co-founded Rogue Robotics Corp. in 2015, along with his wife Charlotte, to promote STEAM careers for middle-school students in Southwestern PA. Rogue Robotics programming consisted of aerospace/rocketry development, specialized computer programming tutoring, and the sponsorship and coaching of competitive, US FIRST Lego League robotics teams; winning many regional awards at competitions including first place in software design, team spirit, and research.