The Leadership Team
Andrew and Peter Smith founded Impact Advisors in early 2007 with the goal of building the nation’s premier healthcare information technology consulting firm. Since the Firm’s inception, the leadership team has expanded to include some of the industries most respected healthcare technology strategists and implementation senior program directors, all of whom have been instrumental in enriching Impact Advisors’ capabilities and creating substantial growth. These leaders, as profiled below, and all of Impact Advisors’ Associates remain committed to sustained excellence and delivering exceptional service and results to our clients.
Andrew Smith
Co-founder and Vice President
Andrew’s 20-year career has been dedicated to the healthcare information technology industry. His extensive experience working with academic hospitals, integrated delivery networks (IDNs), community hospitals and physician group practices enables him to serve as a strategic advisor to many of the industry’s leading CIOs. He has in-depth knowledge of and experience in implementing and optimizing clinical systems with a focus on physician-centric applications, including CPOE and clinical documentation. Andrew has worked on benchmarking efforts with several leading IDNs and community hospitals and has helped them prepare for HITECH’s Meaningful Use and Health Information Exchange (HIE) requirements. Prior to founding Impact Advisors, Andrew was a Vice President with a large healthcare consultancy and managed the Midwest Region. Andrew frequently presents at industry conferences and seminars.
Peter Smith
Co-founder and Vice President
With over 20 years of experience in healthcare information technology, Peter is an industry thought leader, from ambulatory to long-term care and from core clinical information systems to HIE. He specializes in IT assessment and strategic planning, IT organizational design and IT governance modeling. Like Andrew, Peter serves as a trusted advisor to numerous industry-leading CEOs and CIOs. Prior to founding Impact Advisors, Peter was a Vice President at a large healthcare consultancy with national responsibility for managing the Advisory Services practice.
Todd Hollowell
Vice President
When he joined Impact Advisors, Todd brought over 19 years of combined information technology consulting and industry executive experience. His areas of focus at Impact Advisors include: infrastructure and IT operations assessment, IT strategic planning and facilities IT planning and transitioning. Prior to joining Impact Advisors, Todd was the Executive Director and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at a large Midwest Academic Medical Center. Todd has written or contributed to numerous articles, participated on various industry panels and presented at a number of technology conferences.
Melanie Swenson
Vice President
Melanie is a seasoned Executive Program Manager with nearly 25 years of experience implementing and managing healthcare information technology. Melanie directs Impact Advisors’ Epic Systems service line and provides strategic advisory services to several clients who are implementing and/or optimizing EHRs. Prior to joining Impact Advisors, Melanie was a Vice President at a large healthcare consultancy and led its Epic Systems implementation practice. In this role, she grew the practice from 9 to 75 associates, developed a pragmatic methodology for implementing EHRs and led numerous clinical and business system implementations. Prior to consulting, Melanie was the IT Director for a community hospital and worked in the biomedical device industry. Melanie began her career as the receptionist and billing clerk in her father’s family practice clinic.
Paula Elliott
Vice President
Paula is an experienced and talented Executive Program Manager with over 25 years of experience implementing and managing healthcare information technology and projects. Paula’s depth of experience with leading EHR and revenue cycle systems projects, combined with her operational change management skills, allow her to work across a variety of venues and in challenging settings. Paula has been credited with turning around numerous EHR implementations and driving them to success. Paula has also been working closely with clients as they plan for HITECH and Meaningful Use of EHRs. Prior to joining Impact Advisors, Paula was an Implementation Director in the Cerner practice for a large healthcare consultancy. Paula has worked for multiple IT vendors and spent the first 10 years of her career in hospital finance.
Steven Heck
Vice President
Steven brings over 30 years of information technology and healthcare operational and consulting experience to Impact Advisors. Steven started in the technology side as a software engineer, designer and project manager. Later, he joined one of the original “big six” accounting firms and rapidly advanced from Senior Consultant to Partner. Steven then joined a healthcare consultancy as a Regional Vice President and stayed at this firm for nearly twenty years as EVP, COO, President and CEO. The company grew from $6M per year to $275M per year in revenue during this timeframe. Steven specializes in IT strategic planning, executive advisory services, outsourcing assessments and benchmarking. He has also served as an expert witness on numerous IT related litigation cases.