2022 Leadership Journey Project: Conscious Leadership for Women in Digital Health
Olivia Vélez, PhD MS MPH RN, is a health informaticist with over a decade of experience in global digital health. Dr. Vélez is IntraHealth International as Chief Digital Health Officer. As a member of the executive team, Dr. Vélez is a champion for digital transformation for the healthcare workforce and leads IntraHealth’s digital health team and initiatives, including iHRIS—IntraHealth’s free, open source human resources information system now being used in 25 countries. Prior to joining IntraHealth, Dr. Vélez was a Senior Health Informatics Lead with ICF where her work on USAID and PEPFAR-funded projects focused on data use and digital transformation of health systems. Dr. Vélez is an author of over a dozen peer-reviewed papers on health informatics and has presented her work at both national and international venues including MedInfo, the Global Digital Health Forum, the UN Economic & Social Council Partnership Clinic on Mobiles for Midwives, and numerous informatics conferences.
In addition to her role at IntraHealth, Dr. Velez is the co-chair of the Global Digital Health Network, a Professor of Nursing at the University of Maryland, a 2010 Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholar, a 2014 Alliance for Nursing Informatics Emerging Leader, and a 2022 WomenLift Health Leadership Fellow. She believes digital health tools are critical to strengthening health systems, reducing global health disparities, and enabling a fit-for-purpose health workforce.
