The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) has announced it will create a new strategic leadership role in the form of a CEO, whose purpose will be to guide the organization’s future growth. This person will be president and CEO to CHIME, the CHIME Foundation, and the CHIME Education Foundation, and CHIME will begin the search to fill the role immediately. The new president and CEO will be introduced at the CHIME/HIMSS CIO Forum in March.

“Based on the unprecedented need for HIT in supporting the transformation of healthcare delivery and payment reform, the current CHIME Board of Directors is pursuing the addition of a new CIO leadership role” Drex DeFord, chair of CHIME’s Board of Trustees, said in a statement. 

CHIME says the president and CEO will be an experienced healthcare CIO. They will, according to CHIME, be an ambassador for the organization and the industry by speaking, writing about, and attending major functions. They will also work in concert with Rich Correll and the CHIME Board of Trustees to ensure consistency and focus as board members change.

“Rich has been critically important  in providing the vision and growth for the CHIME organization over the past 20 years, and he will continue to provide leadership to the CHIME staff and the organization as CHIME’s Chief Operating Officer” said DeFord.

Correll said in a statement, “The Board worked with me in this decision, which I wholeheartedly supported.  With the tremendous attention now on HIT, it is certain to be timely and beneficial for CHIME to add an experienced CIO to serve in the role of CHIME’s ambassador to the healthcare industry. As CHIME has grown in size, the operational management function has also grown, and I will be pleased to focus my attention in that area and to work with our staff in harnessing operations in support of the direction taken by the new CEO and the Board.