Planning and organization of LA HIMSS began in 2001 and we became an official incorporated affiliate of National HIMSS in 2002. Our initial chapter membership was around 80 health care professionals, mostly concentrated in the southern regions of Louisiana along the I10 corridor. From those early beginnings the chapter membership has increased steadily hitting 197 in 2007 and more recently set a new high mark of just over 400.

Our Beginnings

Jordan Davis with Superior Consultants was based in Dallas Texas and served as the organization's account representative for the state of Louisiana. In 2000 Jordan and Terry Evans, CIO of Thibodaux Regional Medical Center, initiated conversations with several CIOs and healthcare representatives within the state about organizing a Lousiana Chapter to promote technology use and practices exchange in amongst LA based healthcare organizations. Terry came from outside of the healthcare sector and was interested in meeting and networking with other healthcare professionals to learn and exchange ideas of technology use in healthcare. The original charge of the chapter was to promote technology use and facilitate knowledge exchange through conferences and education sessions accessible to healthcare professionals who didn’t have access to National HIMSS annual conference.  

From Jordan and Terry's initiative the Chapter was organized and incorporated in 2002 with Jordan serving as our first President. Unfortunately Terry was new to HIMSS and did not meet the one year membership National HIMSS membership requirement for chapter board members and was unable to participate on the founding board though he was instrumental in getting it started. Once his eleigbility was cleared Terry later joined the board in July 2003.  

Our first Chapter conference held at East Jefferson Hospital in Metairie, LA  was a half day, cost less than $100 and had 12 attendees. Through the support and hard work of our founding board members and their successors LA HIMSS has now achieved financial stability and is able to participate and sponsor large education forums and conferences.