Chief Medical Officer, Mohawk Valley Health System
With the organization since: 2024.
In current position since: 2024.
Education: Completed his residency with The Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency; Doctor of Medicine from Cornell University; Bachelor of Arts in molecular biology from Princeton University.
Career Highlights: Began career at Johns Hopkins University, where he served as core faculty in the department of emergency medicine. Left Johns Hopkins to serve as the chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Harbor Hospital (part of MedStar Health), which began his 20-year leadership path in emergency medicine and healthcare administration. Held leadership positions with TeamHealth, Mercy Health System and Crozer Health and Sound Physicians.
Current affiliations: Board-certified, American Board of Emergency Medicine; board-certified, American Board of Preventive Medicine (clinical informatics); fellow, American College of Emergency Physicians; member, American Medical Association, American College of Emergency Physicians and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
What is the biggest challenge in your current position? “The biggest challenges we face are to ensure that we have highly coordinated, patient-centric care that is of the highest quality. In order to accomplish this, I am responsible for improving the synergy among the employed medical staff, independent medical staff, nursing and the countless other departments that provide care to our patients.”
What is your greatest strength professionally? “I pride myself on building highly functioning, diverse teams of talented individuals. The team must think of innovative solutions, be bold and willing to take risks and it is my job to ensure that they feel supported, appreciated and recognized for their contributions to our combined success.”
If you could make one change to the current healthcare system, what would it be? “I wish that there was a single change that could make substantial improvement. Unfortunately, the degree of dysfunction in the US healthcare system is profound. Having said that, I would change the way that we (the providers) communicate and build an automated platform so that we could easily communicate with each other directly (eliminating the need for fax machines, answering services, pages). “
How do you support the well-being of your team?
“Promote a good work-life balance, recognize as many people as possible, encourage people to unplug during their vacation and family time, and treating everyone with respect and dignity.”