11:30am–12:30am– Room 3
Healthcare Executive IT Panel Discussion
Presented by GHA & GAHIMSS

Sheldon Tyndall, CIO, West Georgia Health System

R. Sheldon Tyndall currently serves as the CIO of West Georgia Health System in LaGrange, GA since October 2004 employed by InfoPartners as part of their Information Services Management Partnership agreement.
Sheldon has 30 years of experience in healthcare IT spanning hospitals, nursing homes, consulting and software vendors with over 23 of those years as the senior IT leader in 5 major health systems in the southeast. During that time experiences have included unique opportunities in a Children’s Hospital, a merger between two competing hospitals, VHA & Premier relationships, and regional and national vendor related user group officer positions and filled the senior IT executive positions in 3 IT Outsourcing accounts.
Vendor relationships include using major solutions from McKesson, MISYS, Meditech, Lawson, Kronos, Microsoft, HP, EMC and IBM.
Sheldon has been a HIMSS member since 1988 and participated in leadership roles at the regional level as the Program Director for the GA HIMSS Chapter and he has been a member of CHIME over 8 years.
He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Columbus College and a Masters in Telecommunications and Information Systems Management from Christian Brothers University.

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Glenn Pearson, Executive Vice President, Georgia Hospital Association

Glenn Pearson is Executive Vice President Georgia Hospital Association in Marietta, Georgia. He is board certified in healthcare administration and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. He provides leadership to the following areas at GHA:

Among his major activities and accomplishments:

Prior to moving to GHA, he was Vice President of Data and Shared Services for the Hospital Council of Western Michigan in Grand Rapids. His acute care hospital experience includes positions at Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan, the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, and Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus..
Glenn is married to Annette, a middle school science teacher and has two children: Andy, a recent graduate of the University of Georgia and Stephanie, a junior at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

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Dedra (Dee) Cantrell, RN, Chief Information Officer,
Emory Healthcare

Dee Cantrell is the Chief Information Office of Emory Healthcare, Inc. in Atlanta GA. Emory Healthcare is an integrated academic healthcare system committed to caring for their patients and their families, educating healthcare professionals for the future, pursuing discovery research and clinical innovation and serving our community. The clinical arm of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University, Emory Healthcare is the largest, most comprehensive health care system in the state of Georgia.

Ms Cantrell earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from Brenau University, and worked as a registered nurse in multiple capacities before becoming involved in healthcare information technology. She came to Emory in 1994 as director of Patient Services Information Systems for the Emory University Hospital and then moved the following year to become a Senior Business Analyst in the Emory Healthcare Information Services Department. Ms Cantrell was promoted to Director of Client and Application Services in 1996, named Executive Director of Emory Healthcare Information Services in 1998, and was promoted to the Chief Information Officer in 2000.

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Ed Brown, VP & CIO, Gwinnett Medical Center

Wallace Ed. Brown is the Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Gwinnett Hospital System. He joined GHS in October 2001. Ed earned a B. S. degree in Mathematics and an M. S. degree in Information and Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ed was previously affiliated with Wellstar Health System from 1997 until October 2001, most recently serving as Vice President and Chief Information Officer. He is a member of the Health Information and Management Systems Society, CHIME, VHA CIO Council, and GHA CIO Council. Ed is married with two children and resides in Auburn Georgia.

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Ross M. Youngdale, Director of IT / CIO, Crisp Regional Health Services

Ross is the Director of Information Technology /CIO of Crisp Regional Health Services in Cordele, GA.  Prior to joining CRH in November 2003, he was the Project Manager for Sumter Regional Hospital’s IT Department.  Ross earned his B.S. Degree in E-Business from the University of Phoenix and is a member of the ACHE, CHIME and HIMSS. 

Ross has been working in Information Technology since 1992.  He served as a Senior Network Administrator and Platoon Sergeant in the US Marines Corps until 1997.  After his discharge, he worked as a 3rd Level Banyan Server Engineer for GTE (Verizon) prior to relocating to Americus, GA.  Ross is married to Renae, a Truancy Officer, and has two children, Morgan and Rylan.

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John C. Wade, Vice President
Saint Luke's Health System
2007 National HIMSS Chairman of the Board

John serves as the Vice President and the Executive Director, Kansas City Regional Electronic Exchange (KC REE) on behalf of Saint Luke's Health System (SLHS) of Kansas City, where he also served for the past 14 years as the VP/CIO. Saint Luke’s is a multi-hospital (11 inpatient facilities) Healthcare provider servicing eastern Kansas and western Missouri within 150 miles of Kansas City.

Saint Luke's serves the KS and MO populace within a 150 mile radius of Kansas City and operatied The Mid-America Heart Institute, a nationally recognized provider for cardiac services and heart transplants. John served in a key quality leadership role for Saint Luke’s who received the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award in 2003, National Healthcare Quality Award in 2000, and who were awarded the Missouri Quality Award 4 times, the only organization in MO so recognized.

Prior to joining Saint Luke's, John was a principal and national healthcare practice director with the consulting firm of Logica North America headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Previously Mr. Wade has also served as the Senior Information Executive at the University of Alabama Health Systems at Birmingham, Northwestern Memorial Health System - Chicago and Children's Hospital Medical Center - Boston. Mr. Wade is an honor's graduate of Boston College where he pursued his Master's in Business Administration and is a Fellow of both HIMSS and CHIME. He has been a featured speaker at HIMSS, CHIME, HFMA, NMHCC, WHCC and National VHA conferences and was recently recognized as one of the top CIO’s in the US by Computerworld publications. John is a member of the CHIME Leadership development faculty and is currently the Chair Elect for the national HIMSS Board of Directors, the premier professional organization for health information professionals.

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