Orange Beach woman receives national honor

BY JOE KORNIK Publisher and Editor In Chief Consulting Magazine
Posted 12/20/16

NEW YORK – During the past 10 years, Consulting Magazine has set out to measure the impact of women on the consulting profession. While it’s impossible to quantify, it’s significant and growing …

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Orange Beach woman receives national honor

Posted

NEW YORK – During the past 10 years, Consulting Magazine has set out to measure the impact of women on the consulting profession. While it’s impossible to quantify, it’s significant and growing every year.

Women continue to make a profound difference to both their clients and their firms. To recognize their achievements, we brought the profession together last month at the St. Regis New York to honor this year’s recipients.

Jenny McCaskey of Orange Beach was one of 13 women to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 Gala in Manhattan. Jenny is a Vice President with Impact Advisors. As a consultant, she supports her firm’s mission to “create a positive impact” for her clients.

As a Healthcare Consultant, she helps healthcare leaders anticipate and solve their toughest problems. She mentors them and guides them to make informed decisions that impact the lives of their patients, staff and communities. Jenny was awarded the Client Service Award.

Some 200 industry leaders, executives, colleagues, clients and family members attended the 10th annual Women Leaders in Consulting Gala Awards Dinner.

McCaskey is a Registered Nurse with more than 35 years of experience in the healthcare industry and 20 years in healthcare information technology.

She is a visionary leader with a solid track record for defining, planning and optimizing the successful implementation of large-scale projects within a variety of healthcare settings.

At Impact Advisors, McCaskey serves as a mentor for healthcare executives and project teams. She has served as Project Director and Project Manager on many electronic health record (EHR) implementations and Change Management projects and is recognized as a leader in EHR program management.

Her journey to Impact Advisors, and now to a Lifetime Achievement Award, was by accident after she took a call from a Healthcare IT consulting firm recruiter 20 years ago, and her experience as an Emergency Department staff nurse and Director provided her the opportunity to be part of a team that was selected to design and implement an electronic health record (EHR).

“An EHR was a big deal 20 years ago,” McCaskey says. “I remember being asked by the VP of Nursing to join that team. My response was ‘I am an ED nurse. I can’t sit in front of a computer all day!’”

After assuring her that she’d be part of transforming healthcare, McCaskey joined the team, learned a ton and realized how in demand her combined clinical and IT skills were.

“Saying yes to the VP of Nursing and to the recruiter were two of the best decisions I have ever made,” she says.

McCaskey says there is so much she enjoys about consulting.

“It starts with working with my friends at Impact Advisors,” she said. “Our amazing team energizes me. I am so thankful to be part of a firm that provides me with the collaborative culture and the opportunities to do what I do best. I really enjoy being a trusted advisor and helping our clients solve their toughest challenges.”

McCaskey says she also enjoys the meaningful work after her experiences in the Emergency Department.

“Patients came to us without IV’s and other lifesaving measures and on many occasions, we saved their lives,” she said. “While I am no longer saving lives in the ED, I believe that I continue to save lives by helping healthcare organizations make the best decisions for their patients and staff.”

As far as winning the award, McCaskey says she is truly humbled.

“I know there are many women in consulting and even in my firm that deserve recognition,” she said. “I accept this award for all of us who believe deeply that what we do makes a difference.”

Consulting: What’s the best advice (consulting or otherwise) you’ve ever received?

McCaskey: “I have received a lot of great advice. It is difficult to pick just one piece of advice but I would say the advice to ‘have 20 seconds of courage’ has provided me with the most benefit. Having 20 seconds of courage allowed me to say ‘yes’ to many things that I might not have otherwise said ‘yes’ to. Once, hearing a scream for help from my sister and sprinting from the volleyball court across the lawn to dive into a pool to pull my brother-in-law from the bottom. I feel incredibly privileged to have the courage and skills to literally have saved lives. So, 20 seconds of courage goes a long way. It helped me dive into that pool.”