Technology >> CEO Interviews >> October 11, 2004
IVO NELSON, a 23-year veteran of information systems and reengineering,
is President and CEO of Houston-based Healthlink Incorporated, the
nation's largest privately held provider-focused healthcare information
systems consulting firm. Prior to Healthlink, Mr. Nelson served with
corporations such as EDS and Perot Systems. While with Perot Systems,
he helped start the Healthcare division and developed it into a $50
million business in a three-year period. Then, in 1992, he co-founded
Insource Management Group, later renamed Healthlink. While leading the
company, Mr. Nelson engineered six acquisitions and mergers that when
combined with strong internal growth, helped name Healthlink as one of
the fastest growing companies in Houston and the healthcare industry,
achieving revenues exceeding $51 million in 2003. In 2002, Mr. Nelson
initiated an internal R&D project, called Prolink4_, that utilized the
company's 10 years of process experience and the expertise of its many
consultants to create a revolutionary vendor-specific, process-centric
set of methodologies and tools for strategic planning, system selections
and system implementations. Mr. Nelson actively serves the industry in
which he competes through his involvement in many of the healthcare
industry's leading associations. He is the immediate past Vice Chair of
the Health Information and Management Systems Society, the largest
association in the healthcare information systems industry, representing
over 13,000 professionals from provider, payor and life sciences
organizations. He also is the immediate past Chairman of the Texas
Institute for Health Policy Research, one of the few healthcare policy
research institutes in the country. Mr. Nelson serves on the Advisory
Boards of the Institute for Innovation in Health Care Facilities
Planning, the University of Connecticut Health Care Information
Technology Program, Nextel Communications' Advisory Board, and he was on
the Board of the Joint Healthcare Information Technology Alliance. He
also serves on a subcommittee of the Christus Board of Directors,
providing oversight to its IT strategy. He has been previously named as
one of the most influential people in the healthcare IT industry in a
survey by ADVANCE for Healthcare Information Executives magazine. He was
one of only two business representatives voted to represent healthcare
businesses to serve on the board of the Center for Healthcare
Information Management Executives, an organization whose members are
exclusively made up of CIOs in the healthcare industry. He was also the
Chairman of the Center for Healthcare Information Management, the
association representing the vendors and consultants in the healthcare
industry. In 2001, Mr. Nelson led the effort to merge the Center for
Healthcare Information Management with the Health Information and
Management Systems Society, creating a consolidated association
representing the individual members active in the healthcare industry
with a new corporate membership representing the vendors and
consultants. Mr. Nelson has been a finalist in the prestigious E&Y
Entrepreneur of the Year award for five of the last six years. Profile
Mr. Nelson: Healthlink is a consulting firm focused on the healthcare
information technology industry. Our particular approach is to help
healthcare provider
