Blazing a path while staying true to family legacy

MAKING IT HAPPEN: Susan Cerrone Abely makes sense of the ever-increasing complexity of health care IT for CharterCare Health Partners, helping the health care provider understand and harness the information it needs while supporting cutting-edge technology on the clinical side of operations. / PBN PHOTO/JAIME LOWE
MAKING IT HAPPEN: Susan Cerrone Abely makes sense of the ever-increasing complexity of health care IT for CharterCare Health Partners, helping the health care provider understand and harness the information it needs while supporting cutting-edge technology on the clinical side of operations. / PBN PHOTO/JAIME LOWE

CharterCare Health Partners Chief Information Officer Susan Cerrone Abely got into health care IT by accident, but it was an accident waiting to happen.
Abely’s dad and grandfather were both dentists; her other grandfather was an engineer. But the family lineage wasn’t something she was thinking about when she graduated from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
“When I went to work for Deloitte right out of business school, I just went in as generic IT consulting, and my first client happened to be health care, and therefore after that first engagement I was kind of like a health care expert,” Abely said recently.
Next thing she knew, she was a national authority, or at least perceived that way.
“When you do an out-of-town health care job, then you’re a national expert,” she said. “It just kind of evolved. … I did like health care. I liked the people, I liked the mission, and it wasn’t just manufacturing cardboard boxes, it was an interesting field.”
With a degree in mechanical engineering and applied mathematics from Tufts and an MBA from MIT, Abely said embarking on a career in the male-dominated field of IT never gave her pause.
“I don’t recall there being any gender bias or having thoughts that I was entering a man’s world,” Abely said. “I never felt any bias in undergrad, or grad, or even in my career that I was going into a man’s field. I don’t hear stories of women feeling any bias or felt any glass ceiling because they were a woman.”
Abely said that she was recruited by Deloitte Consulting out of MIT by an MIT alum.
“She certainly made note during the interview that they accommodate people, but I never felt when I got there that there was anything other than fair and equitable treatment.”
Abely said that Deloitte had women partners in the same ratio as women senior managers. “The women who choose to work that kind of a life had the opportunities,” she said. “If you committed to it, you were acknowledged and promoted equally.”
Were there really no differences between her experience and those of male peers?
“Other than the fact that I’m not a good golfer, I don’t see any difference between myself and any peers who happen to be male,” Abely said.
The current time in the development of IT and health care, at CharterCare and around the industry, is one of dynamic change and great opportunity, Abely said.
“Certainly, the first 20 years of the industry was just doing billing systems and things like that, but now we’re actually doing technology that directly impacts the quality of the patient care that we deliver,” Abely said.
The way that the technology-medicine interface plays out at CharterCare varies, according to exigencies of the specific context, she said.
“We work very closely with our physician advisers,” Abely said. “They are the physicians that have an interest in technology and who understand it to a level where they understand not only the capabilities but also the problems that can come with it.”
As for which group of people advances the role of technology, in terms of the doctors and the IT professionals on Abely’s staff, that depends, too.
“The physicians bring us along sometimes and in other cases we bring them along,” Abely said. “There’s a new tele-neurology technology where there’s a video setup with the patient where they’re looking at the vitals and other things. It’s like having a neurologist at the bedside.”
In that instance, the idea came from the medical side of the organization.
“They needed neurology coverage,” Abely said, “they had heard of it somewhere, and we’re working to get it for them.”
Abely’s colleagues have high praise for her. Words like “tireless,” “well-respected,” and “grace” recur in their descriptions of her.
Despite public perceptions that the health care sector is awash in money, the simple truth is that IT budgets, like many other parts of hospital budgets, are under constant, enormous pressure and simply smaller than people imagine.
Kenneth Belcher, president and CEO of CharterCare, said that Abely’s ability to thrive in such conditions is one of the things that sets her apart.
“She and her IT team have achieved incredible results,” Belcher said.
Even if Abely never saw bias around her, Rose Lamoureux, manager of business operations and health information at CharterCare Home Health Services indicated, women are underrepresented in the field of IT and that does represent a challenge.
“She is the quintessential role model for any female student aspiring to a career in business, technology or management,” Lamoureux said.

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