On an annual basis, organizations like McKesson work diligently to remain relevant in the marketplace where they can continue to add value to customers like you and I.  More often than not, to maintain this relevancy, organizations must make adjustments and react to the environment around them.  Success might be reached via establishing a well-thought plan, but success is rarely maintained without having a highly adaptive culture.  McKesson is setting an example in IT healthcare:   Through change and growth improvements will be made. 

As touched on in a previous President’s Message, McKesson recently acquired Per-Se Technologies.  An acquisition that once complete will push annual revenues of MPT to over $2 billion by 2008.  Being that we are members of the sole McKesson product users group, the fact that integrating with Per-Se means expansion of consumer and connectivity businesses means additional educational opportunities at the InSight Annual Conference; enhanced networking on our Discussion Forums as a direct result of the ever growing membership that has ideas, concerns and solutions never presented before. 

But McKesson is also expanding in other areas that map to our organization’s education as well as our Vision, Voice and Value.  Such as their expansion in hospitals with medical imaging, document imaging, automation, Paragon® and Horizon Clinicals®.  In the New Year we can expect our strategic partner to align its customer market segments in a manner that will allow them to bring product groups closer to the customers they serve, paving the way for better-informed decisions to be made and for those decisions to be completed in a more timely fashion.  Further evidence of change for the good will be revealed in the coming year via McKesson’s ability to better manage their product portfolio, resource allocation, and innovation acceleration. 

InSight will become more relevant and valuable asset to professionals like you as a result of McKesson fine tuning its business to align with customer needs.  Not only will McKesson customers – and InSight members – benefit, but the healthcare industry in general will see improvements.  When an industry leader like McKesson innovates in this manner the rest must do so as well to keep up.  Thus, the customers are the true winners.   

To close the final President’s Message of 2006, I would like to wish you all the best during the Holiday Season and a successful New Year.  InSight is a large users group, but a tight knit one in that we depend on each other to make this organization such an important aspect of our lives.  I am thankful to have the opportunity to remain as InSight President next year, and look forward to spending 2007 getting to know you all better.

Deborah Gash
InSight President
Vice President Chief Information Officer
Saint Luke's Health System