Kara Marx, RN, MHS, FHIMSS, FACHE is the VP, Information Services, Applications at Sharp HealthCare. As VP IT she is responsible for all applications across the Sharp Healthcare enterprise. Prior to joining Sharp HealthCare, Kara was VP, CIO at Methodist Hospital, where she provided vision and leadership on I.T., Informatics and telecommunications to the organization. She was a change agent for H.I.T. transformation for eight plus years. Previous to that Kara worked as a senior consultant with several consulting firms including IBM and First Consulting Group where she had the opportunity to engage with many leading health care organizations across the country to contribute to their strategic goals. Additionally, Kara has experience working with a major pharmaceutical vendor, and a global health care IT software vendor. This work has exposed her to healthcare venues across the country. Kara has held many different roles during her time with the aforementioned organizations which further expanded her unique background of clinical practice, consulting & software implementation.