The ranking features 50 doctors, clinicians and educators who are changing the face of modern medicine

In this year’s prestigious female leaders in medicine ranking, the first place is awarded to Este Geraghty, PhD, who is the Director of Health and Human Services at Esri. She is recognized for transforming health through the strategic deployment of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based platform that improves decision-making, increases efficiency and contributes to local and global collaboration.

Associate Professor Geraghty’s work for global GIS leader Esri includes finding solutions to control and manage disease, homelessness, health preparedness, access to health services, resource allocation, social inequalities and more. The contribution of Geraghty, as Director at Esri, is particularly significant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the need for greater collaboration and increased the importance of interactive dashboards presenting the situation at any given moment. Real-time data has proven indispensable for data-driven awareness and decision-making.

The health community today can build on the lessons of previous emergencies such as the SARS outbreak of 2002 to 2004, Ebola in Africa from 2014 to 2016, and the Zika virus outbreak of 2015 and 2016 to mastering which GIS technologies also contributed. Experts do not need to start from scratch with each health and social crisis, but rather adapt existing plans as each challenge unfolds.

GIS is increasingly at the heart of these efforts, transforming data into information that, based on location and geographic analyses, provides institutions and public leaders with a basis for strategic plans and effective operational actions. What makes GIS so significant is that they support decision-making based on scientific facts and evidence.

In addition to her contribution through GIS to improve community health and responses to social and health challenges, Assoc. Dr. Este Geraghty is recognized as a leader in the world of medicine and for her previous experience as Deputy Director in the Ministry of Public Health of California. And because as an associated professor at the University of California, at Davis, Este conducts research on geographic approaches to influencing health policy and advancing community development programs.

In 2021, the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) named her one of the most influential women in health IT.

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