Laleh Shahidi, PhD is a visionary executive with a proven track record in healthcare informatics, entrepreneurial leadership, creation and deployment of innovative and content management systems including Web 2.0 techniques and online collaboration methodologies, and online e-learning systems.

As a medical informatics expert, she brings many years of experience in health and medical technologies, healthcare regulations and standards with deep knowledge of the healthcare industry and thorough understanding of organizational culture and management challenges. Laleh has worked with her clients to formulate strategies, design processes, and tools for different aspects of operation including compliance and cross functional collaboration in health informatics.

As the Former CEO and Founder of Active Path Solutions, Laleh led the creation of this company’s unique software solutions approach to rapid deployment of customized network-based content, document, and workflow management systems, with an innovative approach that minimized customers’ need for full understanding of or involvement with the underlying technology infrastructure.

She set the vision for the company, developed its business plan, formed the corporate structure, arranged initial financing, developed the company’s product strategy and high-level product definition, directed business development with a wide variety of clients, structured and sourced the software engineering resources to support the company from around the globe, supervised rollout of the product lines and customer installations, and managed all post-sales support for the organization.

As a knowledge management systems expert, she brings a unique background in understanding of how to assess content management and information workflow needs for an organization, a knowledge of the latest software tools for knowledge capture, updating, content migration, and dissemination, and the ability to rapidly deploy such solutions within environments with a variety of technical sophistication levels.

She has the expertise to define approaches to structured content modeling, content architecture, means of information reuse (with respect to scope, type, granularity, and best practices for management), metadata taxonomy (for content classification and ontology), and both theoretical and hands-on experience in the psychology and technology of optimal user interaction and experience with such tools (including evaluation of personas, scenarios, and multiple use cases for each application).

As a learning architect, she designed, maintained, and implemented virtual learning environments and successfully developed an online learning system that emphasized the creation and shared use of knowledge among multidisciplinary groups. She has been involved with the development of a community of learning experts to build a framework for “learning architecture” and research on how to frame the next generation of learning innovation. A learning architecture includes learning related structures, policies, processes, activities, tools, and technologies that an organization uses to enable strategy and deliver high differentiated performance through individual and organizational learning in the enterprise

As a software development executive, she has led numerous joint development teams, both within Active Path Solutions and as an external consultant and expert, to implement advanced knowledge management and e-learning solutions rapidly, to spec, and at cost. Tools from blogs to wikis to drag-and-drop data repositories were integrated with easy-to-use online technologies to enable users to access, interpret, and upgrade knowledge systems in a dynamic environment. She can readily interpret a client organization’s readiness to implement such solutions, interact, lead and mentor individuals at all levels of the company to execute the projects, manage to project deliverables, act as a principal liaison between the business management and its IT organizations, and identify/recruit/manage necessary outsourced skills as needed to make the project a success.

Examples of this include creation of McGraw-Hill’s interactive textbook (including text, static graphics, audio, and video) and associated online tools, the San Mateo County Knowledge Capture and Transfer Project (for the Human Services Agency), development of a competency-based online education prototype for the American College of Surgeons Maintenance Certification program, and, for the Human Capital Institute, creation of an online community of experts to build a framework for the next generation learning innovations.

For her formal education, Laleh has a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies and Medical Informatics, participated in a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Medical Informatics, an M. Ed. In Instructional Technology, and a B.A. in Art History.

As her career developed, she extended this learning with extensive study in Medical Informatics, advanced Web 2.0 software technology, Knowledge and Content Management systems, e-Learning solutions, and (to support a deeper understanding of how users learn and interact with web-based tools) extensive exploration of modern educational principles and theories. She also continues study in the areas of human behavior, social and cognitive psychology, organizational development and behavior, holistic health, and the latest Information Technology approaches.

Dr. Shahidi is also the author of multiple papers and numerous international presentations in Medical Informatics, and has filed for patent coverage for her technology innovations in Content and Knowledge Management.