Can you imagine this nurse on a Harley?

OK, so I should have given this award on May 6th, but I didn't.  As a reminder, the Ad Hoc Harley award is something that I do that is completely arbitrary.  There is no nomination committee, but nominations are always welcome.  The purpose of the award is to recognize the contributions of people to the field of healthcare IT, and it already has a history of excellence.

I've known the next recipient for more than six years.  She's always been supportive of my efforts in HCIT, but they are just a drop in the bucket compared to what she has managed to accomplish.  Under her leadership, one organization went from being a co-sponsored project between several medical professional societies to being one of the World's most influential non-profit corporations dedicated to the advancement of interoperability.

She's overseen the implementation of federal contracts which harmonized specifications across more than a dozen different SDOs, and a half-gross of standards.

In one of her newest roles, she will help advance HIT interoperability deployment efforts in the United States as an officer of IHE USA, Inc.

Her latest blog post talks about how unlikely it will be for the Healthcare industry to achieve ARRA objectives without nurses (link below after the award).

A pair of nurse colleagues of mine stood in the IHE Interoperability showcase at HIMSS more than 3 years ago.  I introduced them to this nurse, who was behind everything that Showcase has become.  She spent a good bit of time talking to the two of them.  I explained who she was afterwards, and what she had done, and one colleague turned to the other and said:  "All this because of just one Nurse..."

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This certifies that

Joyce Sensmeier, MS, RN-BC, CPHIMS, FHIMSS
of HIMSS

Has hereby been recognized for outstanding contributions to the forwarding of Healthcare Standardization

Joyce will undoubtedly tell you that she didn't do it alone and that she had the help of many other nurses and other professionals in her journey. She may be right, but, she still deserves recognition.

Joyce, congratulations, and think of yourself as a representative for all nurses, which is how you have acted for as long as I have known you.

Here's a link to her recent blog post, which made me realize how overdue this award was.