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Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | May 23, 2022
From the May 2022 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
AAMI announced in February that Pamela Arora would be stepping in as the health technology management (HTM) association’s president. Before joining Children’s Health in 2007, Arora served as SVP and CIO at UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Massachusetts, CEO of LiquidAgents Healthcare, and CIO of Perot Systems in Dallas, TX. She holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Wayne State University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
HCB News: AAMI announced you were selected as the new president and CEO in February. When will you / did you officially assumed that role? What has the transition been like?
Pamela Arora: I started my first days in the AAMI offices just this March and it’s amazing to know I’m joining an organization that so positively impacts healthcare delivery across the globe. I had been with the AAMI board for about five years, so it has been less of a sudden shift than you might think. I’ve watched how the scope of AAMI’s influence is broadening with the evolution of medical devices and technology, and the organization needs to strongly capitalize on its wins. I have ideas of what those are, but it’s important that I take the next several months to listen to our members and stakeholders to hear their perspectives. I’ll be at the AAMI eXchange in San Antonio, TX this June to get to know our community. Come and say, “hello!”
HCB News: Tell us a bit about your background in healthcare and with AAMI. How did your role at Children’s Health System of Texas help prepare you for this new role?
PA: It was the evolution of medical devices that initially brought my attention to the IT aspects of healthcare delivery. For fourteen years, I served as chief information officer at Children’s Health System of Texas and eventually as their senior vice president of strategic technology. It was there that I discovered that AAMI was helping the biomeds I worked with stay on top of technology evolution, and so I decided to get involved with the association.
HCB News: Can you share some of the key initiatives AAMI will be focusing on over the next year?
PA: Getting to know AAMI’s members is important to me. We are launching a comprehensive membership survey in late April. Over the last few years, the needs of our stakeholders have been changing dramatically. This survey will serve as an environmental scan of the healthcare industry so AAMI can effectively meet our membership’s expectations.
On the education side, we’re continuing to expand our service offerings to meet member needs. Along those lines, we’ve partnered with two amazing companies, Amplifier and Ambifi. Amplifier leverages advances in brain science to accelerate training in a way that’s quite unique, and Ambifi transforms the way organizations deploy and support tasks like equipment maintenance. We’re excited about bringing these capabilities to our stakeholders and will be continuing to expand our training capabilities.