In the podcast, Jane Smith Patterson discusses her childhood and education, career, accomplishments while serving in NC Governor Jim Hunt’s administration, and how NCHICA was founded.

Jane, a lifelong activist to advance fair and equal treatment for minorities and women, was involved in the early Civil Rights movement, Equal Rights Amendment, and ACLU, and met leaders like Martin Luther King and Jimmy Carter. She was also a visionary who recognized early on the power of computers and how they could transform the state’s economy and healthcare. She was involved in building the state’s “information highway” while working in Governor Hunt’s administration, and advanced it worldwide while with ITT. In 1994, she wrote the Executive Order signed by Gov. James Hunt that established NCHICA, the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, to advance healthcare through the use of information technology. NCHICA was a pioneer in transforming the U.S. healthcare system, and is credited with being the founder of the HIPAA Privacy law.

Janet Kennedy of Get Social Health is our podcast host.