Health information and technology blog HISTalk has named Kaiser Permanente chairman and CEO George Halvorson as its 2013 HISTalk Health Care IT Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. The award recognizes Halvorson’s career-long body of industry work.
The annual HISsies awards are based on an open nomination process, selected by the blog’s readers. A final ballot is then sent to 9,000 of HISTalk’s readers.
Kaiser Permanente is also HISTalk’s 2013 recipient of the Best Provider User of Health Care IT Award.
“Mr. HIStalk,” which is a pseudonym for a health IT professional who has authored the blog anonymously since its creation in 2003, says the vision and execution involved in Kaiser Permanente’s KP HealthConnect project have earned the respect of readers for its impact on patient outcomes and research.
“I was not surprised that Kaiser Permanente won the Best User category again this year, but I didn’t necessarily expect readers to name George Halvorson as the Lifetime Achievement Award winner since he doesn’t work solely in health care IT,” he said. “Readers obviously recognize that Mr. Halvorson made KP HealthConnect a high-profile organizational strategy, and in doing so created a model of ideas and practices that is diffusing to the benefit of patients everywhere. I think readers respect that when everybody was just beginning to talk seriously about future IT-enabled health care excellence, Mr. Halvorson and Kaiser Permanente just went out and did it.”
For more information, read the press release on the Kaiser Permanente News Center.
