Meet the Changemakers: Ashley Delosh

HIMSS serves the global health information and technology communities with focused operations across North America, Europe, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Our members include more than 80,000 individuals, 480 provider organizations, 470 non-profit partners and 650 health services organizations. The HIMSS staff is made up of changemakers who collaborate with members to reform the global health ecosystem through the power of information and technology.

Ashley Delosh is Senior Manager of Federal Affairs at HIMSS.

How long have you been at HIMSS?

I have been working with the HIMSS Government Relations team for about a year and a half now, serving as a Senior Manager.

How do you support our mission statement?

While we are a small team, we are quite mighty! We support the HIMSS mission by being thought leaders in the public policy areas of interoperability, connected care and health data privacy and cybersecurity. We advocate on behalf of the membership to ensure that good policies are developed for the future of health information and technology. In the process we strive to provide recommendations regarding proposed and existing regulations to government officials and to distill, inform and educate industry leaders that plan to develop and market technologies that would fall under the purview of these laws. Our work is all in an effort to serve healthcare providers’ needs in this realm and most importantly, their patients, to the fullest extent possible. 

How do you know your work at HIMSS makes a difference?

I read about it in the news! My team’s work and extensive efforts in the past 6 months alone have been so incredibly apparent during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and the country's response to expansions in telehealth and increased access to quality and reliable broadband connectivity, as two prominent examples. It makes me feel extremely energized to see that our work is literally something that impacts the entire healthcare ecosystem, in real time!

What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about the work you do at HIMSS?

How invigorating it is to work with a policy topic that is constantly morphing! Government affairs, as it relates to healthcare information and technology, is a huge beast to tackle. From the moment a rule or piece of legislation is dropped, this team is on it — reading, analyzing and dissecting it so that it is digestible for the entire body of membership.