St. Scholastica hosts HIM leaders, practitioners on campus today

One of the nation's most influential women in healthcare will give a free public talk this evening on the College of St. Scholastica campus.

Linda Kloss, who advises the White House on matters of health information management, will speak at 6:30 p.m. in Mitchell Auditorium. She's the inaugural keynote speaker of the LaTour/Eichenwald Forum on HIIM Leadership & Innovation. HIIM stands for Health Informatics and Information Management.
She will speak about "leadership for the digital era of health information management," examining challenges and opportunities, with special focus on preparing professionals to manage health information for the good of patients and for the public good.

The Forum is named in honor of Kathy LaTour and Shirley Eichenwald Maki, who are retiring from St. Scholastica's HIIM department after a combined seven-plus decades of national leadership in education and in the profession.
A reception honoring LaTour and Eichenwald precedes Kloss's talk, also in Mitchell Auditorium. The reception begins at 5 p.m. More than 200 practicing HIM professionals and students are expected to be on hand.
Kloss, a 1968 graduate of St. Scholastica, serves on the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, which advises the Secretary of Health and Human Services on national health information policy.  She co-chairs the committee's Privacy, Confidentiality and Security Subcommittee.

From 1995 to 2010 she was CEO of the American Health Information Management Association, leading a period of growth and expanded influence for the professional society of 60,000 health information management professionals worldwide.  She was recognized for expanding the influence of AHIMA through extensive collaboration and a strong role in setting standards and shaping national policy for health information reform.  In 2007 Modern Healthcare named her as one of the top 25 Women in Healthcare and from 2002 - 2007 to the list of the Top 100 people in Healthcare.   
Today, as principal for Kloss Strategic Advisors, she speaks and writes on information asset management, strategy and organization development, and change leadership.  She works with boards and senior teams of health care associations on strategy, planning and information governance.