Sandra Trakowski MS, BSN, BCIN, RN

Sandy Trakowski considers herself one of the pioneers of nursing informatics. She first became involved as a nurse at the National Institutes of Health in 1980 with one of the first uses of a hospital information system to enter patient information, including physician orders and nursing notes. From there, she spent the next 30+ years working for HIS vendors and hospitals developing and implementing information systems.

As Director of Clinical Informatics at the Washington Hospital Center, she used a data mining product to design clinical data reporting tools for use by clinicians. As VP of Clinical Products with a start-up company, she obtained FDA clearance for one of the first products to support  blood administration documentation at  the bedside. She returned to the hospital as Director Nursing of Informatics at Georgetown University Hospital, where she lead implementation of their HIS. She also was employed at the MITRE Corporation as a healthcare informatics consultant and worked on CMS projects related to quality measures and meaningful use. She looks forward to continuing work in informatics as an independent clinical informatics consultant.