The WHIT Committee includes CIOs, Presidents, Director and Sr. Director level leaders from multiple healthcare disciplines such as, Managed Care Plans, Healthcare Consulting Firms, Healthcare Software Vendors, Healthcare Associations, and Healthcare Providers.

Our Mission

The primary objective of WHIT is to seed, incubate, and advance women’s career aspirations in Healthcare IT. WHIT will solicit volunteers and financial sponsorship from organizations to support various functions and events to achieve this primary objective. We invite you to join WHIT to advance women in the Healthcare IT field and achieve the following goals and objectives: 

Seed, incubate and advance women’s career aspirations
Mentor and inspire young and talented women
Network with other accomplished women
Break the glass ceiling

Why Women?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, women make approximately 80% of healthcare decisions for their families. This number shoots up to 94% for families with kids under the age of 18. In the general healthcare workforce, women make up 70 percent of healthcare service managers and 47 percent of medical school graduates. However, that representation sharply drops as we move higher up the organizational ladder. Just 19 percent of hospital CEOs are women, and only 4 percent of healthcare companies are run by women, according to the 2013 RockHealth "Women in Healthcare" report.

When we look at the IT industry as a whole, the struggles continue with gender diversity. While women make up 57 percent of the overall workforce, in the technology sector that number falls to just 25 percent. The disparity is even more evident at the IT executive level, where women represent only 20 percent of CIOs at Fortune 250 companies. Survey results from the 2014 State of the CIO survey reflect that disappointing reality: Among the 558 total respondents, only 60 were female (or 10.7 percent). (Source: www.cio.com)

HIMSS recently released its "Gender-Based IT Pay Inequality & the Impact of the Clinical IT Executive in the Health Sector" report, which found men in health IT earn an average salary of $126,000, while women in health IT earn an average salary of $101,000. Additionally, there is a significant gap in the percentage of men and women holding senior and executive roles in health IT. The survey found 3.6 percent of female respondents hold executive management roles, compared to 11.8 percent of male respondents.

That disparity can be partly explained by the lack of a sufficient education pipeline, an area that WHIT is actively working to improve. According to research by The Atlantic, in 2010, 57 percent of undergraduate degree recipients were female, but women accounted for only 14 percent of computer science degrees awarded at major research universities. And more incredibly, just 0.4 percent of female college freshmen say they intend to major in computer science

Join us

The committee participation is wholly on a volunteer basis. This group is affiliated with both Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Northern and Southern California Chapters. To join any of our programs or events, please email whittywomen@gmail.com.