As part of our ongoing celebration of our chapter, we are reaching out to our founders to gather reflections regarding the genesis of HIMSS Central Pennsylvania and some current insights. 

Here is our interview with Mark W. Stevens, FHIMSS. Managing Partner, Enable Health.

Q. How did you become involved with the effort to start the chapter? 

A. Edith Dees (Holy Spirit), Buddy Gillespie (Wellspan) and I (PAeHI) worked together to advocate locally and with HIMSS national to form CPA HIMSS. We had a successful and broad statewide collaboration previously in starting up the HIMSS Pa Health IT Advocacy Day and learned in the process 1) the central part of the Commonwealth did not fall under the jurisdiction of with Western PA or Delaware Valley chapters and therefore had no representation (this included Geisinger Health System, Capital Blue Cross, etc.), and 2) with the increasing importance of advocacy work, it made sense that a chapter be formed that geographically represented the State capitol and could spearhead all government and policy for work in PA on behalf of HIMSS.

Q. What value did you see in having this organization in Central PA? 

A. See above.

Q. Are there any specific memories of HIT issues facing the industry at that time? 

A. Where do I begin?! The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 stands out, as it included provisions to pay for EMR adoption on a nationwide and unprecedented scale (remember Meaningful Use?!), launched a CMS innovation center (CMMI) and for supported States in setting up HIEs on a centralized or federated model.

Q. How has the industry evolved during the 10 years? 

A. The growth of the Cloud and advanced technologies like AI have and are transforming the industry and how we provide care. And a COVID-silver lining has been the accelerated movement towards parity for telehealth and behavior health, including social determinants.

Q. How has the chapter evolved? 

A. It's grown!

Q. Any particular favorite memories of the chapter? Or proud moments? 

A. To be able to be with Buddy when he celebrated his 100th birthday was very special…

Q. Any hopes for the next ten years for HIMSS CPA and HIT? 

A. Continued growth!

Q. Anything else you would like to add? 

A. Thanks so much to the many great people who devoted so much of their time, effort & expertise to advance HIMSS in PA and the adoption of health IT always with the patient’s well-being the central driver in our collective work. I’d also like to give a special shout out to our honorary CPAHIMSS member/leader, Dr. Tom Boyd, for his tireless and continuing work advancing government advocacy and telehealth.