The Susan McFarland Volunteer Award

The HDAA Board is pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 Susan McFarland Volunteer Award, revealed November 9 at the annual conference in Miami.

Xin (David) Ding is an assistant professor of supply chain management and the director for Healthcare Analytics and Intelligence program at Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick. His research examines the demand-supply relationship in the healthcare context. Specifically, he is interested in cost efficiency, clinical quality, patient experience, and safety practice within hospitals. His research has provided insights on how traditional operations management concepts including focus and quality improvement can be integrated by hospitals to further improve their performance.

David conceived and designed our HDAA Insights series in 2022. He proposed the series, met every other week with Eric and me as we put it together, attended every session, even volunteered his students as advisors to make sure we were meeting the needs of students.
If we’re really serious about advancing the profession of healthcare analytics – and if you’re here, you ARE serious about it – HDAA Insights may have been the most important initiative we had this year. Thank you, David, for making it possible.


Volunteers are the lifeblood of HDAA, making possible everything from our annual conference to our website to our special interest groups and online forums. Each year, we honor one volunteer for outstanding contribution to our mission and dedication to the spirit of collaboration that informs everything we do.

The Susan McFarland award, named for the woman who was HDAA’s driving force for its first 17 years, recognizes our volunteer of the year. This individual has donated significant time and effort, often behind-the-scenes, to keep our organization running efficiently, our members engaged and informed.

Criteria

The HDAA Board will select the person who best demonstrates one or more of the following:

  • outstanding support of one or more areas of HDAA operations
  • commitment to HDAA’s mission and guiding principles
  • innovative expansion of services to our members

Eligibility and nomination

  • The nominee must be a current member of HDAA and have participated in at least one HDAA volunteer activity in the calendar year
  • The nominee must be 18 years or older
  • The nominee cannot be a current member of the HDAA board
  • Previous award winners are not eligible
  • Any HDAA member may nominate an individual for the Susan McFarland Award, subject to the eligibility requirements above.

To nominate someone, write a note describing the person’s efforts and contributions that support the award criteria. Send nominations to [email protected] Deadline is one month prior to the HDAA annual conference. 

Selection and recognition

The HDAA Advisory Board will announce the winner at the annual conference, during the members meeting.
Upon acceptance of the award, recipient will receive an award and public recognition through the HDAA website.


HDAA Honor Roll

Winners of the Susan McFarland Award

2022

David Ding Assistant Professor of supply chain management and the director for Healthcare Analytics and Intelligence program, Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick
Father of the HDAA Insights series

2021

Anjali Ancy Student, Mount Carmel College, Autonomous, Bangalore
Devoted curator of HDAA on LinkedIn

Heather Wilson Business Analyst, Evergreen Health
Inspiring social media advocate and Slack administrator

John Peters Senior Business Intelligence Developer, Intermed
Conscience of the HDAA conference presentation committee

Mary Jo David Technical Writer, Michigan Medicine
Stalwart editor and steward of our presentation committee

2020

Lynsie Daley Senior Data Analyst and Team Lead, Intermountain Healthcare
Peerless lead of HDAA's Women in Analytics special interest group

Patrick Day Senior Advisor and Product Owner, Cigna 
Equally distinguished lead of the Data Governance SIG

Michael Lewis Senior Director of Healthcare Analytics, Cleveland Clinic
COVID panelist extraordinare

Boris Tyukin Senior Big Data Strategy Manager, AdventHealth
First-rate and tireless presenter

2019

Beth Willmitch Senior Analytics Architect, Baptist Health of South Florida
Indefatigable maintainer of HDAA membership roster