Carolyn Byerly - Fierce Women to Watch in Health IT

Who: Carolyn Byerly

Current position: CIO of Stanford Hospital and Clinics

Location: Palo Alto, Calif.

Fast facts: Byerly was named chief information officer for Stanford Hospital and Clinics in June of 2002. Under her guidance, Stanford this year implemented a Clinical Information System known as Epic. Prior to working at Stanford, she served as the CIO of Lovelace Health Systems in New Mexico. Byerly also has worked with the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Good Samaritan Health System in San Jose, Calif., and Children's Hospital in San Francisco.

Why she's so fierce: Shortly after joining Stanford in 2002, Byerly led a review of the institution's IT operations, which resulted in the decision to outsource most IT operations to Perot Systems for a reported $380 million. With just one internal position per nine outsourced jobs, Byerly designed a leadership structure to oversee the project. Today, Stanford is among the top 2 percent of hospitals in the nation to reach Stage 6 on the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model.