Excellence in Health Award - 2003

Education For A Lifetime
Alumni Profile

Elizabeth Pettrone, an HSA Grad, Uses the Web to Connect with the Health Care Community
Elizabeth (Betty) Pettrone has extensive experience in the business of health care. Her background as an administrator in private practice and with the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester New York gave her a strong foundation in understanding the day-to-day operations of health care. But she wanted to take her thinking, and her career, to another level.

Pettrone credits RIT's Health Systems Administration program with giving her the critical thinking skills she needed in today's constantly changing health care environment. "The program took me from being an operational thinker to analyzing health systems on a broad scale," said Pettrone. "I am now able to make judgments from a much wider perspective. That is extremely important in my business."

Betty enrolled in RIT's Health Systems Administration program in 1997, the year before she started her company, Practis Inc. Her business is providing automated solutions - web site design, hosting, secure patient forms and interactive educational tutorials - to health care organizations across New York State. Pettrone saw the web as a great tool to connect health care administrators to resources, information and to each other. Today, Practis Inc. has 75 clients and each week receives 5,000 visitors to its New York practice management portal www.epractis.com . Betty's success led to her being named one of the Rochester Women's Network Top 25 Up and Coming Businesswomen for 2003, and the 2003 winner of RIT's Tom McCaffery Award, given in memory of the Health Systems Administration professor who helped develop the business model for Practis Inc.

In addition to owning her own business, Betty is now an adjunct faculty member in the Health Systems Administration program. Using her background, Betty developed an Ehealth course and another in health care applications for the Health Information Resources program. She feels the HSA program is more than just academics. "It's a place to meet and learn from others in the field. The program is a great place to network in the health care community," says Pettrone. "Your learning experiences develop into life long friendships and interactions with colleagues in the field. HSA provides an on-going support system."