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Melissa Owens

Senior Director, Healthcare Practice Lead

Customer Experience

Melissa Owens is Sr Director CX, Healthcare Practice Lead, overseeing a team of specialists in healthcare IT operations, strategy and execution to leverage Cisco CX expertise in delivering healthcare-specific solutions. Melissa’s passion for healthcare IT runs deep, dating back some 30 years ago when she chose to become a biomedical engineer because girls from rural Wisconsin ‘just didn't do that.’ The healthcare IT career path was set, and it has spanned vendor-focused patient and clinician solution development and executive IT roles with health systems. Her decision to join Cisco was fueled by COVID-19 and a mission to help the most people by joining a company with the solutions and expertise to drive true healthcare transformation. Previously, Melissa was Regional Technology Officer for Ascension, serving as the chief IT executive for Ascension Wisconsin’s 23 hospitals and 125 clinics. There she oversaw construction of new facilities, an enterprise-wide Epic implementation, consolidation of the call center strategy, and deployment of virtual care solutions. She also led M&A for Ascension IT nationwide. On the health systems side, Melissa held IT executive positions at WI-based Advocate Aurora and Marshfield Clinic Health Systems, leading application and integration engineering, implementation, population health, lab, radiology, data warehousing and innovation teams. Additionally, she spent nearly eight years at Epic Systems Corporation in Verona, WI, leading interoperability teams, managing technical programs, and developing and launching the Beaker Lab Information System. Melissa holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Marquette University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University. A respected thought-leader on advancing interoperability, Melissa participated on the National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation Council and briefed US Congressional staff on Marshfield Clinic’s success in interoperability.

Articles

How Two Cisco Women Leaned In and Supercharged Their Careers

5 min read

In honor of International Women in Engineering, we spotlight two extraordinary women at Cisco, Priya Aiyer, and Christelle Mombo-Zigah. Here, they share their career journeys, experiences and insights from their participation in Cisco’s Exemplar Diverse Female Mentee program.

July 6, 2022

HEALTHCARE

Reluctance to Embrace Technology in Healthcare

3 min read

The factors influencing the adoption of technology in healthcare are multifaceted. So, how can healthcare organizations pick up the pace to meet their patient’s expectations?

November 18, 2021

CISCO CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Talking Healthcare with a Team of CX Healthcare Experts

3 min read

As health systems face a myriad of challenges, technology remains at the heart of helping them to accelerate business value and remove burdens. Learn how the CX Americas Healthcare Practice combines Cisco technology and extensive healthcare expertise to help customers develop strategy and deploy technology.

Opening the Digital Front Door to Healthcare

4 min read

A patient-centric digital front door strategy means providing healthcare access and support wherever the patient is. It can also unlock incremental revenue increases as much as 10% resulting from improved patient experiences. Read about the four focus areas of a digital front door strategy.