Distinguished Alumni Award

Marcia J. Radosevich, 78MA, 82PhD, trained in sociology and has enjoyed an impressive career in technology and information management in the health care area. Formerly chief executive officer, president, and chair of the board of HPR Inc., an emerging company in health care information technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Radosevich now serves as consultant to the Health Care Entrepreneurship Program at Boston University's Health Policy Institute.

A creative contributor to interdisciplinary research on gender, deviancy, and issues of health in her early career as a sociologist, Radosevich turned her knowledge and skills to the foundation of health care services that have made a difference in society. After research work as a fellow at Yale, Radosevich received additional training in business at the Wharton School of Business. In her subsequent position at Boston University's Health Policy Institute, she developed software to help health care providers manage the cost and delivery of medical care.

It took Radosevich only 13 years to grow her software ideas into a company that was assessed at approximately $500 million in 1997. She served as president, chief executive officer, and chair of the board of HPR, and her advocacy of the managed care alternative emerging in the 1990s was a role of enough magnitude to land her inside the pages of Newsweek, Business Week, the Boston Globe, and numerous trade journals. With annual revenues of $35 million and 340 clients with offices in Chicago, Phoenix, and Birmingham, HPR had become a leader in providing managed care organizations with what Radosevich calls "solutions to contain health care costs while maintaining high quality standards of care."

In 1997, Radosevich sold HPR to the Huff, Barrington, and Owens Company (HBOC), an acquisition which led Financial News to describe the reformed company as a leading provider of clinical information systems for the managed care industry. In 1998, HBOC with some 6,000 employees worldwide was considered the top provider in the $15 billion health care information industry.

Several agencies over the past decade recognized Radosevich's remarkable entrepreneurship. Most notably, she received the Committee of 200's Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1992, and she was a finalist twice, in 1993 and 1996, for Inc. magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Consistent with the spirit and passion she brought to innovations in health care, she currently serves as a consultant to the Health Care Entrepreneurship Program at Boston University's Health Policy Institute.

Radosevich has shared the proceeds of her company, both financially and in terms of her acquired skills. She has contributed materially to social causes and liberally in devoting her expertise and time as consultant and board member. Among her many civic and professional service contributions, she has been an overseer of the Boston Medical Center, a trustee of the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum, and a gubernatorial appointee to the Minority and Women Business Oversight Committee in Massachusetts.