It’s Time

For nearly thirteen years, I’ve been employed by GE Healthcare, or it’s successor,  Virence Health, working on or implementing Health IT Standards.  Today I turned off the last device that connected me to that organizations electronic infrastructure, and synced my email with my newest employer starting tomorrow.

Over that time, my skills, my influence, and all that I am on this blog has been shaped and influenced by the passionate people I have worked with, who truly care about what they do.  As much as I have taught, I have also learned.  In that time, many people have turned a vision I had into reality for me, for themselves, and for our customers.

From the manager who placed a bet on me and found the loophole that could bring me on board, to the strategist who threatened to quit if I wasn’t, to the genomicist who taught me most of what I know, to the budding and passionate architect with a single name (like Madonna), to the brilliant engineer and architect who should have been an architect years before I ever met him, to the young lady whose name I remember simply because of her divinely festival decorated hands who accepted and excelled at evry challenge I set before her, to the woman who project managed three teams with members across three time zones, five cities and two continents, to the services leader who crossed all the t’s I missed, and the integration specialist who passionately drove our engineering teams to do the right things for us, them and our customers, to the guy who taught me almost every thing I know about risk assessment, and the guy who made it impossible for me to say “I know nothing about DICOM”, and the other fellow who made it necessary for me to prove it, and to the person I called regularly to listen to my challenges and help me work them out, to the guy who took SMART and FHIR and built a tool that others said couldn’t be done, the woman who became her products CDA expert and then applied those skills to another key product, and to the best boss I ever had who pushed me up harder and faster than any before him, and perhaps any since, I thank you.

For those, and all the teams I’ve worked with over the years, at Connectathons and showcases, through two different ONC certification regimens (pre and post-HITECH), and beyond, you deserve recognition.

For your continued dedication through all challenges, I’m awarding you all the Ad Hoc Activa award.  It’s the workhorse of a nation, pushing its people to work every day to make their lives better, just as you are.

—  Keith

P.S. If you don’t already know how to find me, don’t worry, I’ll still be around, and a later tweet will link to the details.  If you follow me on LinkedIn, you’ll likely find out tomorrow.