WellSpan Health announces today that Dr. R. Hal Baker, senior vice president and chief information and digital officer has been named the 2021 Philadelphia CIO of the Year in the Healthcare category.
“The great team around me has helped support our journey from a computer screen with labs on it to a fully integrated health record that connects to our patients and community. It helps people feel like we know them and that’s what is really important to me,” said Baker, who oversees information technology, health information management, medical informatics, cyber security, digital and biomedical.
Known as the ORBIE awards and put on by PhillyCIO, winners are selected across seven categories, including Leadership, Global, Large Enterprise, Enterprise, Large Corporate, Corporate, & Healthcare. Honorees go through a rigorous, independent judging process led by prior award winners.
This award signifies exceptional leadership, innovation, and vision and it’s a testament to work that Dr. Baker and his entire IT team has done from accelerating telehealth capabilities during the pandemic to creating a central alert team to battle sepsis.
Since 2005, Baker has championed WellSpan's progress in leveraging technology to improve patient safety, clinical care and quality of the patient experience. Additionally, he has been instrumental in the creation of patient portals that focused on giving patients immediate control of their data.
Baker was also recently named one of the "102 hospital and health system CIOs to know” just a few weeks ago by Becker's Hospital Review.
“There are so many people responsible for helping me make a successful transition from medical education into technology. I’m truly grateful for that support and the continued dedication from our teams across WellSpan as we advance data analytics and find innovative solutions to help our staff and patients,” Baker said.
