Melissa Owens
Healthcare IT Executive
Germantown,WI
Summary
Senior executive and transformative leader with proven experience in strategic planning, building high performing teams and developing digital health solutions. Pioneered the first CX vertical at Cisco, in year one increased professional services bookings by 138M and overall healthcare bookings by 444M. At Aurora, built an innovation council to support frontline and non-traditional growth teams to identify novel projects and remove barriers to adoption. Saw an increase of 250% in adoption of emerging technology at scale over previous years. While with Epic, took over failing efforts in the laboratory space. Re-architecting and piloting the LIS product within 9 months and scaling and generating revenue of $50M in 18 months. Frequent speaker on modernization of process, organization structure and transformation.
Overview
23
23
years of professional experience
Work History
Healthcare Vertical Leader
Cisco
Milwaukee, WI
03.2021 - Current
- Architected Cisco’s healthcare strategy to drive growth for healthcare clients across all Cisco solutions globally.
- Built a startup team of healthcare operations experts for business development, solution architecture and software development and coordinated across highly matrixed organization to develop a global ecosystem for healthcare
- Increased professional service bookings by 200% year over year for those segments (138M) where all other industries were flat or declined
- Cultivated relationships with both clinical and technical executives from leading institutions across the nation to become their strategic partner and win their trust for multi-year engagements
- Identified and managed key strategic vendor partnerships for integration opportunities, staff augmentation and co-selling motions.
Regional Technology Officer
Ascension
Milwaukee, WI
09.2019 - 03.2021
- Chief IT Executive for Wisconsin market comprising 17 hospitals and 27,000 employees.
- Developed and led large-scale technology initiatives for long-term strategic plans and solutions including enterprise Epic implementation.
- Configured and implemented IT initiatives to produce measurable business value.
- Led IT mergers and acquisitions team for Ascension nationally, averaging $40M in acquisition, divestiture, and joint venture information technology activity annually. Developed governance and technology framework for rapid onboarding of new practices
- Developed and rapidly deployed new digital tools for our largest employers to use for streamlined COVID testing within our facilities.
Vice President
MOC
Milwaukee, WI
05.2018 - 09.2020
- Principal strategist focused on technology enablement for patient engagement
- Developed 3-year technical roadmap and executed vendor engagement plan for fully revamped patient access across all clinics and laboratories for large health system
- Built a new consulting division focused on patient experience management to complement and augment self-service and telemedicine product lines for established healthcare hardware vendor - Quadrupled revenue in first year.
Senior VP IT, Application Engineering
Advocate Aurora Healthcare
Milwaukee, WI
01.2017 - 05.2018
- Led applications, system administration, software development and support teams for the enterprise
- Transformed organization to incorporate innovation, integrate systems, standardize and optimize platforms, improve processes and maximize our investment in our Epic enterprise application suite
- Built a data warehouse and advanced analytics system to support data driven business management. Expanded scope to include external data feeds from major payer partners
- Partnered with business, finance, and IT leadership to develop business capability and technology roadmaps to ensure that technology investments were made in support of high priority business objectives in population health, patient engagement and distributed imaging
- Introduced agile methodology to structure maintenance and project work for rapid deployment cycle and re-architected project intake process. Increased productivity by 10% equating to 21,000 hours recaptured for project work
- Created and led innovation council to support both frontline project teams and non-traditional growth teams on defining value prop for experiments and pilots and removing barriers to production roll out
VP Implementation Systems and Support
Marshfield Clinic Health System
Marshfield, WI
01.2008 - 01.2017
- Led all ongoing solutions development for a large health system as well as built out a professional services and support organization for the commercial market as part of company spinoff
- Delivered 5-year technology roadmap for replacing homegrown LIS, EMR and Revenue Cycle legacy systems with virtualized platform that supported a hybrid cloud deployment model
- Oversaw all IT solutions development, system administration and support for a 1.2B health system, supporting 13,000 users and a portfolio of ~60 projects per year and 11 self-directed agile teams
- Recognized as national expert on advancing clinical integration. Participated on National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation Council and briefed Senate on Marshfield Clinic’s success in interoperability.
Application Lead
Epic
Verona, WI
01.2006 - 01.2008
- Responsible for overseeing R&D, QA, implementation, and technical support for both clinical and public health laboratory applications
- Asked to take over the development and management of a new application suite that was in danger of an unsuccessful launch. Within 9 months successfully went live with pilot site and scheduled 3 more customers for implementation. Within 18 months, contracted an additional 33 customers. Increasing revenue to $50M.
- Participated in design and planning exercises for future software rollouts.
- Worked closely with other team members in such tasks as troubleshooting and debugging.
- Participated with clients in in pre-sales and implementation meetings.
- P&L responsibilities
Group Lead
Epic
Verona, WI
01.2001 - 01.2006
- Led a group of HL7 interface specialists in developing, implementing, and supporting hundreds of interfaces for large healthcare organizations
- Served on senior management team, providing leadership in application integration, roll out and implementation methodology as well as providing expertise to customers on appropriate ways to use technology to improve their workflows
- Worked with President and founder to define and develop both in house and customer process improvement initiatives
- Worked as technical sales liaison, instrumental in cultivating and acquiring new customers
- Expert in interoperability. Active member of international HL7 organization, defining integration standards.
Education
Master of Business Administration -
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Business School
Bachelor of Science - Biomedical Engineering
Marquette University
Skills
Budgeting
Leadership and Staff Development
Consulting
Corporate strategy development
IT Management and delivery
Technology utilization optimization
Change Management
System design and implementation
Epic Enterprise Implementation and Optimization
Thought leadership
Planning and execution
Digital Transformation
Data and Interoperability
Accomplishments
- Board Member: Wings of Hope
- Accomplished Artist: My work can be viewed at www.knotheaddesignstudio.com
- Member: HIMSS, Epic User Group, HL7, S&I Framework, Institute for Health Technology Transformation, NDHI, IHE, ITIL, TEMPO
- Actively engaged in STEAM programs: LC.Stars, Hour of Code
- Early Career (1995-2001) includes progressive analyst and technical services positions with Spacelabs Medical
Affiliations
HIMSS, Epic User Group, HL7, S&I Framework, Institute for Health Technology Transformation, NDHI, IHE, ITIL, TEMPO
Timeline
Healthcare Vertical Leader
Cisco
03.2021 - Current
Regional Technology Officer
Ascension
09.2019 - 03.2021
Vice President
MOC
05.2018 - 09.2020
Senior VP IT, Application Engineering
Advocate Aurora Healthcare
01.2017 - 05.2018
VP Implementation Systems and Support
Marshfield Clinic Health System
01.2008 - 01.2017
Application Lead
Epic
01.2006 - 01.2008
Group Lead
Epic
01.2001 - 01.2006
Master of Business Administration -
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Business School
Bachelor of Science - Biomedical Engineering
Marquette University