In last week’s blog I focused on the need to embrace change in order to effectively implement healthcare IT solutions, as well as reform healthcare. Perhaps I was remiss in not pointing out that effective and enthusiastic leadership is vital to this effort. Whether it’s the hospital or vendor C-suite, great leadership breeds a willingness within the larger organization to follow that leader’s direction – be it to initiate a new coordinated care program within the local community or to move forward with development of a healthcare IT solution that enables that provider’s efforts.

I’m lucky to live in a community – Atlanta – whose hospitals and healthcare IT businesses have shown great leadership and willingness to change healthcare for the better. It’s no coincidence that Atlanta- and, more broadly, Georgia-based companies are in the news quite often. (See stories such as “Georgia Tech, IBM partner for 'One Million Healthy Children'” and “Piedmont Healthcare, TeleHealth Services partner on interactive patient education.”) It, I can only presume, is due to diligent leadership and enthusiastic execution.

This was made all the more evident to me at the recent 2011 Business to Business Atlanta Healthcare Leaders awards luncheon. Recipients included executives from Emory Healthcare, Piedmont Healthcare, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta Gastroenterology Associates, Good Samaritan Health Center, Resurgens Orthopaedics and Gwinnett Medical Center; as well as MedAssets, Kimberly-Clark Health Care and Jackson Healthcare.

All the recipients seemed to have a number of characteristics in common: an emphasis on philanthropy, active participation on company boards, and heavy involvement in advancing Georgia’s healthcare reputation – both as a world-class provider of care and incubator of cutting-edge IT companies.

Leadership will no doubt also be a topic of conversation at the Health IT Leadership Summit, which will be held at Atlanta’s historic Fox Theatre on November 8th. I’m looking forward to hearing from Mark Dente, MD, CMIO at GE Healthcare IT; Harry Reynolds, Director of Health Industry Transformation at IBM; and Greenway Medical’s Justin Barnes, who seems to be the area’s expert-in-residence when it comes to HIT policy. I’m perhaps most excited about the chance to hear Dr. Kenneth Wilson, Director of Trauma at Grady Hospital. Dr. Wilson has performed tours of duty in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait. I can only imagine the leadership lessons those experiences have left him with.

I have a feeling these leaders will discuss the need for healthcare collaboration, accessibility and affordability to the extent the award winners did. They are important components of the change in care – on a local and global scale - that is coming.

Jennifer Dennard is Social Marketing Director for Atlanta-based Billian's HealthDATA, Porter Research and HITR.com.