The 2020 Women Leaders in Technology: Robin Settle

Now a Principal with ECG Management Consultants, she brings a passion for helping clients capitalize on technology to support and improve operations in ambulatory and hospital settings, and more recently Settle has focused on the transitions of care and patient engagement—outside the hospital. 

In addition to being a firm resource for healthcare IT, Robin leads operational improvement engagements in patient access, revenue cycle, and practice management. She also offers expertise on the latest trends in technology, such as telemedicine, care management, and customer relations management.

"I enjoy the variety of clients and projects. From capabilities to regulatory considerations, health information technology has progressed and continues to evolve, which keeps work interesting," Settle says.  "It is also exciting to see how much we rely on technology to improve healthcare operations—which has always been more of my passion."

Looking ahead, Settle says she is very excited to see the impact of the new HHS rules on interoperability and data blocking. "Over the years, I have been a bit of a pioneer working with health information exchange and promoting data sharing, so I'm looking forward to seeing the ease of data sharing expand."

Ask her about the best advice she's ever received, Settle will say: "As a consultant, you will never get in trouble for doing the right thing—it may not be the popular decision and might result in an unhappy client at the moment, but in the end you need to recommend what's right for the client."

Settle says these days there are so many more women in technology, especially in healthcare. "However, until 10 years ago, that wasn't the case," Settle says. "Most of my clients were male, and since I had evening childcare responsibilities, professional networking was difficult."

As far as winning consulting's Women Leaders in Technology award, Settle says "to win a national award recognizing my long career in health information technology is very gratifying. I am also honored that I was nominated by my colleagues at ECG."

What would you consider your greatest personal or professional achievement?

Settle: "I feel fortunate to have achieved both personal and professional success over the years—I've been married for 33 years and raised two children who have gone on to have their own careers and lives. As an administrator and a consultant, I'm proud of my efforts to launch Temple Children's Hospital. I've helped many hospital leaders in major academic centers—including my alma mater, Penn—to create more efficient organizations in support of their mission to improve the health status of the Philadelphia community."