Karen Williams Email and Phone Number

With more than 30 years' experience in many disciplines of Laboratory Medicine, Karen has spent the last 25 years managing 2 separate physician office labs in Northern Michigan. Starting both from the ground up, she has full knowledge of what it takes to run a successful lab and the value of understanding the workflow of the physician office. Her most recent lab has been fully interfaced to Centricity EMR for 2.5 years using Liaison EMRLINK. In addition to interfacing the in-office laboratory, Karen has played a vital role in interfacing with Quest Diagnostics, McLaren Northern Michigan Hospital Lab and most recently completed a Radiology/Transcribed Document interface project with McLaren Northern Michigan Hospital through Medicity. Karen takes pride in her ability to see the bigger picture and how every function, system and role relates to each other. Her experience has brought her a unique perspective of the important role laboratory medicine plays in health care. Having worked in the hospital lab, private lab and physician lab environments, she clearly sees how each must work together to produce quality data efficiently and effectively to providers so they may treat their patients. Karen has shared her experiences as a presenter at the Spring 2012 and 2014 CHUG conference in Las Vegas and was the feature speaker for a federally-sponsored Laboratory Interoperability Workgroup Webinar for Regional Extension Centers consultants. Karen has also been interviewed by Health Data Management Magazine responding to the challenges of Lab Connectivity.Karen attributes her success to not just her professional experience but also in the experiences that she has had volunteering in team building programs with children. She finds many of the same principles used in those programs apply to the workforce and have certainly benefited the teams that she has worked with and managed over the years.