Maria Suarez, AVP, Security Assurance, Empire BlueCross BlueShield Maria Suarez is currently responsible for security assurance at Empire BlueCross BlueShield where she heads a comprehensive Information Security Program that includes risk assessment, risk management, security awareness, policies, standards, procedures, and more. She spent her previous two years at Empire BlueCross BlueShield as Privacy Officer. Prior to that position, Ms. Suarez she was Director of Internet/Intranet Development, where she first became actively involved & interested in information security as concerns with maintaining the confidentiality of members' healthcare information had to be addressed in the new e-business environment. Prior to Empire BlueCross BlueShield, Ms. Suarez worked at North Shore University Hospital as technical lead in the kick-off of their managed care project. Prior to that she was at Coopers & Lybrand as an application developer in a wide spectrum of platforms: mainframe, midrange & PCs over distributed systems on MVS, VMS and Unix, and developed applications using Oracle, C and Informix-SQL. Various awards she has earned at Empire BlueCross BlueShield include their Leadership Award, Team Award, and Turn-Around Award. Ms. Suarez has been a speaker on Geographical Provider Search Systems at the GeoAccess User Conference, and a speaker on Healthcare Accessibility/Provider Systems at the Nat’l Managed Health Care Congress. She has also published an article on GIS and the Internet in "Health Management Technology." Ms. Suarez received her MBA in Quantitative Analysis/Computer Information Systems from St. John's University, and her BA in Math/Computer Science from Queens College, CUNY. Contact Us Home