Healthcare IT Game Changers to Watch: Northrop Grumman’s Amy King

Present: Vice President of Health IT Programs, Northrop Grumman

Career history: Prior to joining Northrop Grumman in 2006, King spent nearly 10 years at CGI-AMS (formerly American Management Systems), her last role as vice president for federal healthcare. Prior to AMS, King served as a senior manager responsible for developing various systems at Department of Treasury, Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), Department of State, General Services Administration, US Air Force, US Navy, and Defense Logistics Agency.

Personal: King is an avid golfer. “The game of golf teaches you that, while you may think you have it down pat, something comes up to surprise you … sort of what happens in life and healthcare!” says King.

TIPS

• Embrace open source. “I think that will really be a wave of the future; the proprietary nature of systems will become more obsolete. We recently re-won a program with the National Institutes of Health called the Bioinformatics Resource Center (BRC). This and other bioinformatics work is all open source,” says King.

• Wear two hats. “I recommend putting on two hats; one as a taxpayer wanting to make sure that the investment pays off, the other as an investment collaborator. We all have an important role to play and we’ve all got to work together. If we don’t, something will fall through the cracks.”

• Put yourself in the beneficiary’s shoes. “Whether the beneficiary is a veteran, military health personnel, or recipient of child support, it’s important to think through, from a business perspective, what can help meet a customer’s mission objectives.”

FULL INTERVIEW

ExecutiveBiz: You’ve personally been in the healthcare marketplace about eight years. What particular market challenges have you since seen along the way?

Amy King: The issue of interoperability — having to share not only data but systems — has evolved over the last eight years. In the past, you had so many more stovepipe systems; now there is an acknowledgment of the need to share data and systems for the overall benefit of the public. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is one example. CMS has gone from being just a payer, to implementing Medicare Part D, to potentially, now, having a big role with whatever is decided about extending health benefits.

ExecutiveBiz: Where are you seeing the greatest need for interoperability?

Amy King: Certainly, many people around the country have had a lot of challenges, financially, over the past year.  We support many state and local human services programs that are being pushed to the max. We do eligibility, child support, child welfare, food stamps, among others.  We consider that part of health; we see the whole umbrella of health and human services as a key component. We’re seeing states go to single eligibility systems for all of their programs. We’re seeing more cooperation and coordination among states around sharing of information and the participants in those services programs. We’ve helped them take care of the increased population of beneficiaries in those programs.

ExecutiveBiz: What healthcare IT markets will you be pursuing this year and beyond?

Amy King: We’re looking toward international public health IT opportunities. We’re expanding the scope of our public health practice to deal with the response to readily maturing needs in several countries, in areas such as population management and laboratory information systems.Another area we’re tracking is bio-threats to public health. We saw this issue arise with the H1N1 virus and, and a few years ago, with anthrax.  We’ll continue to develop tools to help our customers detect, analyze, and respond to these threats.

ExecutiveBiz: Where does healthcare reform fit into your market strategy?

Amy King: We’re continuing to strengthen our positions to support the emerging needs of healthcare reform. Our work at CMS, the Social Security Administration, and, then, in the states all give us an opportunity to offer solutions and help with the security aspects. I think security will be a real key factor in the years ahead as the data gets out into the public domain. We have to make sure that the privacy aspects of data is protected. Security, obviously, will play a key role there.

ExecutiveBiz: What is Northrop Grumman doing to strengthen cybersecurity as part of healthcare IT solutions?

Amy King: We have several IT labs set up to address some of the security threats, whether for the networks, data, or systems as a whole. We’re bringing some of our solutions from the intelligence community since they’ve had the most visible programs dealing with security. I’ve talked to a lot of our customers and there’s much more willingness to take solutions from the intelligence community because things like data mining and a lot of the security aspects are equally applicable. Why reinvent the wheel and spend precious dollars when there is a solution that can be applied to a health IT problem?

ExecutiveBiz: Where do you see contractors making the greatest contribution to healthcare reform?

Amy King: We see a future where health information technology (HIT) and health information exchange will become commonplace amongst healthcare providers over the next few years.  We were one of the original Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) contractors so we have a solution around that; we’re piloting and working with some of our customers and looking at the health information exchange opportunities in the states that are really going to play out in the next few years. You’re starting to see some of the ARRA funding go there.  I think health reform will only impact it even more. Quality and outcome metrics will become a part of HIE over the next several years so we’re looking at that. I would say that the speed and delivery and cost will be important, too, not only to the states, but also to the federal government. People will want to see their data and not have to have some of the challenges that they’ve had in the past.

ExecutiveBiz: What upcoming trends will Northrop Grumman be seizing in healthcare IT?

Amy King: One of the trends we’re seeing is the need to provide transparent data to the public. With all of our work, we’re seeing much more transparency. We’re seeing more portals. We’re seeing more easy access to the data. We’re seeing opportunities such as the Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (JVLER)between the Department of Veterans Affairs and Military Health. This effort is  a continuation — and an acceleration — of what has been done in the past. With the widespread use of electronic health records and the commitment to improvements and outcomes in health, I think this is going to be an exciting time.

Posted by Lisa Singh on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010. Filed under Healthcare IT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry