Susan McFarland

Susan McFarland’s professional path was hardly a straight line through the world of healthcare analytics. Instead, her career has been “a coat of many colors, patched together with collegiate and public-school teaching, medical research, curriculum development and design, and the arduous task of “teaching analysts how to teach.”

If there was a picture of someone posted next to our logo, it would be a picture of Susan.

“I first was shepherded by Susan when coordinating topics for our conference in New Mexico (2003). Instead of a bunch of cats running around with all sorts of ideas going in different directions, we had a very organized conference that convinced me we had something special as a group with potential to grow. ….

 

We could not be what we are today without Susan’s dedication that built the foundation on which we stand.

 

 

– HDAA Board Member Leslie Kian

Susan describes her work with HDAA as the highlight of her career. She was a constant presence in our organization from its founding in 2001 as the Healthcare Data Warehousing Association until she retired in 2018 as HDAA’s first operations manager. She coordinated the first HDWA gathering at Intermountain Healthcare’s executive board room in Salt Lake City. From then until her last conference in Cleveland in 2018, she managed membership enrollment, organized conference committees, managed our website, and facilitated our transition from “glorified book club” to an independent legal entity.

I hope those of you that are reading this are thinking, ‘HDAA is a great professional organization that allows me to brainstorm with others in my same field, provides me with a unique opportunity to increase my working knowledge, offers me a chance to attend a fantastic annual conference, and gives me the chance to volunteer my services along with so many others allowing HDAA to become an even greater professional organization.’ Volunteers are the backbone of HDAA!

 

– Susan McFarland

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