2023 Women Leaders in Technology: Jonce Smith

With over 35 years of health care experience, Joncé Smith's comprehensive skillset, health care leadership and executive health IT consulting span multiple health care provider models including government, nonprofit, academic facilities, for-profit and accountable care organizations. Her expertise includes hospital revenue cycle optimization, IT legacy system support, project management, strategic planning, IT governance, interim management and system implementation. With revenue cycle management as her specialization, she excels with business office transformation, payer reimbursement workflow and financial data analytics to ensure combined operational efficiency and financial alignment for client hospitals. She has successfully led multidisciplinary teams comprised of client and other external vendor resources. With distinct attention to detail, she optimizes client hospitals' revenue cycles concurrent with new system implementations by enabling more efficient workflows with industry standards and best practices.

What has been the biggest factor in your success so far?

Becoming a continuous learner was a game changer. At pivotal points throughout my career, I was fortunate to work for truly incredible managers. They challenged me with really tough assignments, where I had to use planning and organizational skills to break down complex projects into manageable work pieces. Those managers also took the time to share insights and feedback on what they felt were my strengths were, and more importantly, how I could improve. That motivated me to become a continuous learner — one who thoroughly observes, ask questions, reads and applies critical thinking.

What do you enjoy most about your career in the consulting industry?

I enjoy having the ability to solve new problems the most! Each day, something new pops up. I'm a true analyst at heart. I love solving problems; they're like puzzles to me. I so enjoy the problem-solving process — gathering data, fact-checking, researching and asking questions — to produce a resolution strategy.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

My proudest achievement is helping others, seeing them succeed and gaining some dear friends in the process. I'm very grateful for colleagues that turned into a good friends. Throughout the year, I get emails and messages from them, and each one is so dear to me. It's very humbling to have so many that stay in touch.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

The best advice is to always be prepared. Plan for the worst but hope for the best, and the end result will fall somewhere in between. In health care IT consulting, it's our job to anticipate the unknown and navigate hospitals through barriers, whether it be resource constraint, changes in regulations, or new organizational goals.

What does this recognition mean to you?

Earning the 2023 Women Leaders in Technology Lifetime Achievement recognition is a true capstone to my career. It's very humbling and gratifying to think that my work in health care throughout my entire adult life genuinely made a difference. I can only hope that my health care IT consulting work helped at least one patient and their family or their health care provider.