Mary Beth Mitchell, RN, MSN is the Director of Clinical Informatics at Presbyterian Hospital (PHD) of Dallas, a large acute care hospital with over 600 beds that is part of the 13-hospital Texas Health Resources organization. Mary Beth has responsibility for providing support and maintenance for all the Information Systems at PHD, including all clinical applications, network/infrastructure, computers and printers, and the PHD Intranet sites. Currently, PHD is implementing a full electronic health record (EHR), and Mary Beth finds this her most challenging role to date, providing oversight for EHR implementation to 3,500 employees. She worked with the VP for nursing (in 1998) to develop a Clinical Informatics Department at PHD that has grown to 12 employees with plans to add 9 more positions over the next year. The Department has expanded from providing technology services for nurses and now supports all clinicians. Mary Beth provides lectures on both system selection and health information technology budgeting considerations. Mary Beth has over 15 years as an ICU nurse, and then wokred as a Clinical Nurse Specialist before moving into the Nursing Informatics role. She has a Diploma in Nursing from Brackenridge Hospital School of Nursing and a BSN and MSN from the University of Texas in Austin. In 2000 she received a Post-master's certificate in Nursing Informatics from Duke's program. As the only Nursing Informaticist at Texas Health Resources, she also routinely consults with the Information Services Department, and other hospitals, chairs and attends numerous system wide committees and task forces, to ensure that the unique needs of clinicians in providing safe, quality patient care are met in the planning and implementation of any use of technology across the system.

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Shirley J. Tierney, RN, MSN, CAGS is a Specialist in Nursing Informatics at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, a tertiary care, 3 campus academic health care center of nearly 800 beds located in Central Massachusetts, which is part of the greater UMass System of more than 1000 beds and 4 additional member hospitals. Shirley has responsibility for developing and maintaining databases and custom reports in support of nursing administration, clinical nursing, and nursing quality improvement initiatives. She often provides implementation and application training in new clinical systems throughout the Medical Center. She and her staff also provide support and maintenance for the UMMMC Nursing Website and for the Nurse Staffing System, including a current roll-out to UMass member hospitals. In addition, Shirley is often is asked to serve as the applications specialist for a wide variety of standard and custom desktop applications. Known for her analytical skills and her fondness for problem solving, a pending implementation of a system-wide ICU electronic medical record is sure to offer her a challenge. She serves on several clinical and IS based committees and working groups.

Shirley serves as the Site Project Coordinator for the Patients First Initiative sponsored by the Massachusetts Hospital Association, in partnership with the Massachusetts Organization of Nurse Executives. This initiative, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, commits hospitals to work collaboratively in creating practices and innovations aimed at advancing safe, high-quality patient care, and informing the public about them. Shirley has recently co-authored an article for CIN: "Interdisciplinary Collaboration: an effective approach for developing Web-based courses." She has also presented at the annual Per Se Technology Worldwide User Conference.

Shirley has more than 20 years in the Perioperative environment, first as an OR Staff RN and later as the Director of Perioperative Nursing Services, a position she held for nearly 8 years prior to choosing life as an Informatics Specialist. She has a Diploma in Nursing from New England Deaconess Hospital (1975), a BSN from Fitchburg State College (1982), an MSN from Anna Maria College (1984) and a Post-master?s certificate in Nursing Informatics from Duke (2000). She is also hoping to enroll in a PhD program where she can pursue her interest in data mining relative to staffing effectiveness.

Current Likes: Data analysis, custom report writing, problem solving, project management, application implementation, teaching, public speaking, presentation creation, database creation, working with high energy, "can-do" people. Current Dislikes: budget management, too many meetings, and the word "no"!

Shirley lives in Bolton, MA with her husband of 29+ years and 16 yr old cat, Bubba. Shirley provides guest lectures on the topics of people management and human dynamics as they relate to project management.