Joanne Rohde, the co-founder and CEO of Raleigh-based Axial Exchange, is among the 50 leading health IT entrepreneurs across the U.S., according to San Francisco-based accelerator Rock Health.

Rohde, a former Red Hat executive, says “it’s great” for the startup to receive “some name recognition nationally.”

Rock Health disclosed its 2013 “Top 50 in Digital Health” in the Golden Gate city over the weekend as life science and biotech executives from around the country gather there for a series of events.

The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is the big draw, and Rohde sees multiple events from attending as well as receiving the recognition.

“Simply PR and validation,” she says of cracking the list. However, there is one concrete benefit:

“Makes it easier to get meetings.”

While the conference “for public companies,” Rohde points out: “It becomes center of universe for a week, so I’m able to meet customers, potential partners and investors all in one spot..

“Very efficient.”

In its salute to Rohde, Rock Health praised her for efforts that have already led to awards and a growing customer base for Axial.

The kind words:

Joanne Rohde, CEO, Axial Exchange

“Joanne brings 30 years of relevant experience growing companies using disruptive business models. At Axial, Joanne has already led the company to national recognition, attracting the Mayo Clinic as a business partner and investor, winning the HHS/ONC Transition of Care Contest, and being selected as a company to watch at Morgenthaler’s prestigious DC to VC Conference, while building a client roster of top-tier healthcare organizations. Former COO and Director of Health IT Strategy of Red Hat, Joanne and her team created a new operational and service model that propelled Red Hat through the “J curve” of revenue growth from $100 to $500 million. As CIO of UBS Investment Banking IT, she oversaw a $1+ billion annual budget and 1,500 mission-critical systems, and helped globalize an industry that works on information and milliseconds.”

HHS refers to a federal government award for Axial.

The company, which raised $5 million from investors last July, is aiming to help change the way healthcare providers and doctors interact with patients.

Axial focuses on the use of technology such as social media and customer feedback to improve what it calls patient engagement.

In its ongoing review of hospital-patient relationships, Axial puts emphasis on customer satisfaction. Since hospitals now are reimbursed in part based on customer satisfaction, meeting expectations of patients is more important than ever.

Rohde recently explained customer satisfaction importance to WRALTechWire on Thursday: “CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), which pay 50% of all healthcare expenses in this country are actually modifying payment algorithms to reflect patient satisfaction, or HCAHP (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) scores. So hospitals are equally invested as the consumers. That’s when everyone wins.”

xconomy has more details about the entire Rock Health list.