Healthtech Consultants

Susanne is a leading contributor to the advancement of eHealth in Canada. She established Healthtech in 1983 out of the desire to help healthcare organizations improve the delivery of patient care through the use of technology.

Susanne's vision, insight and leadership have combined to create a highly effective consulting organization with a reputation for delivering high-quality results, on time and on budget. Susanne has brought her strategic and innovative insights to hundreds of engagements during more than two decades, from strategic and tactical planning to system implementation and Interim Chief Information Officer roles.

Susanne holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from McMaster University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario. She is currently on the Board of ITAC, ITAC Health as well as the Board of Camp Awakening - a camp for disabled children and teenagers.

Expertise

• Strategic assessment and planning for regional initiatives, focusing on governance, funding and partnership issues
• Project management and evaluation informed by extensive implementation experience and wide-ranging vendor knowledge
• Significant DI/PACS planning and implementation expertise both in single organization and regional settings
• As an interim Chief Information Officer (CIO) Susanne has served in a number of senior interim positions, providing her the opportunity to step directly into her client's shoes and gain firsthand knowledge of the issues they face on a daily basis

Karen Shearing-Wittig is well-recognized as an extremely effective senior project leader. She is known for her broad knowledge of clinical and administrative systems gained over more than 25 years of experience in healthcare. Karen is a team builder who uses a collaborative approach to achieve results. She effectively creates an integrated project structure where Healthtech Consultants and individuals from the client's team work together towards well defined results. She ensures that knowledge is transferred so that the organization can transition smoothly when the project is complete.

As Healthtech's Executive Sponsor for the Project Management Office, Karen has provided leadership to the ongoing refinement and validation of Healthtech's REAL project management methodology.

Karen also has over 20 years experience in leading MEDITECH systems implementations on all platforms – Magic, Client Server and most recently 6.x. In the past five years she has provided MEDITECH project management leadership to six large MEDITECH HCIS initiatives including Canada's first and second MEDITECH 6.x green field implementations.

Expertise

• Deep knowledge of MEDITECH HCIS implementation critical success factors
• Strong understanding of detailed clinical and administrative departmental processes
• Significant knowledge of best practices in application optimization
• Industry-leading project management skills

With over 20 years of clinical experience Terri brings in-depth clinical practice knowledge to electronic health record (EHR) initiatives. A critical component of EHR implementation is electronic clinical documentation. Terri has significant experience in the assessment, planning and implementation of electronic documentation and other elements of the EHR such as computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and electronic medication management.

In addition to enterprise EHR initiatives, Terri has provided strategic leadership to organizations with MEDITECH Hospital Information Systems. Terri leads the MEDITECH Advanced Clinical Systems practice within Healthtech.

Expertise

• Industry-leading clinical assessment and planning expertise
• National leader in advancing the use of medication management, portal/clinical viewing tools and clinical documentation applications
• Recognized for her visionary understanding of the use of advanced clinical functionality including strategies and technologies to engage the physician community

Hy Eliasoph, MA, is well known and respected in the healthcare field and brings with him a wealth of experience and a passion for eHealth. Hy has led and facilitated the review and development of strategic plans for individual, regional, and national organizations. Hy works with stakeholders to develop an effective understanding of an organization's current strategic state. Hy then leverages this understanding to create a strategic plan which advantageously positions an organization for both its short term and long term future.

Most recently, Hy served as the first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Central Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), and acted as the eHealth Lead for the 14 LHIN CEOs. Hy has published extensively, presented at numerous conferences, workshops, and educational programs, and serves on two National healthcare journal Editorial Boards.

Expertise

• Multi-faceted strategic planning, implementation, and operational mindset
• Effective stakeholder engagement skills which supports current state and future state development
• Strategic and tactical plan development for individual, regional, provincial, and national organizations

John is a highly successful public and private sector senior executive “change agent” with exceptional abilities in focusing on management and technology solutions in a variety of senior management positions and highly developed leadership abilities related to performance improvement and technology implementation project management. John has more than 20 years of senior consulting / leadership experience within the Ontario healthcare sector;

• Many senior Healthcare roles such as Interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS), where John was presented an honorary award, “In Recognition and Appreciation for Leadership and Service in Health Information Technology” from the Board of Directors ;
• Many Senior Project, Leadership, Director and Advisor roles achieving successful completion of complex eHealth projects within Ontario and throughout Canada; and
• Academic contributions through experience as an Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Molecular Biology at Queen’s University.

As Associate Vice President with Healthtech Consultants, John is responsible for the Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR), Infrastructure, and Regional PACS/DI-r Practice. John is an accomplished senior administrator and consultant with a strong practical knowledge of healthcare.  John brings practical advice to all his engagements, building trust and credibility with stakeholders, and ensures that realistic, achievable solutions are designed to meet his clients’ needs. John keeps up to date with federal, provincial, and regional health care planning initiatives and brings this knowledge to his clients, ensuring that all engagements are undertaken in the broader business and policy context and are therefore appropriately aligned.

Expertise

• A proven track record for the leadership of large, complex, multi-application, multi-vendor, multi-organization integrations across complex environments with extensive geography, focusing on; governance, funding, project management, financial control, strategic, conceptual and detailed planning, implementation and operations.
• Extensive experience interacting with senior executives and medical leaders, where he has consistently achieved a comprehensive level of confidence and decision support for recommendations.
• In depth knowledge and experience in the negotiation, development and oversight of agreements/contracts, agreement frameworks, and contract management.
• Considerable experience with project funders such as Canada Health Infoway, and eHealth Ontario
• Significant regional Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR) and Diagnostic Imaging Repository (DI-r) knowledge and experience including; Clinical Data Repositories (CDRs), Portals, Health Information Access Layers (HIAL), Regional Governance Models, and Regional Shared Services Models.
• Substantial strategic, planning, operations, and leadership expertise in Diagnostic Services including; Clinical laboratories; Infection Control and Surveillance, and Medical Imaging.

Bruce is a healthcare technology leader with a proven track record of leveraging technologies to improve patient care. Over the past 24 years, Bruce has gained progressive experience in Information Management in a variety of sectors. Bruce has provided leadership to over 250 projects in healthcare, including key projects of note such as: HCIS consolidation planning for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, CW and MH LHINs, CE LHIN, NSM LHIN; Data Centre consolidation planning for WW and Central LHINs; Financials and people management consolidation for New Brunswick's FacilicorpNB; and IS/IT Shared Services planning for Saskatchewan Health.

Expertise

Bruce is a demonstrated leader in:

• Information Management
• Shared Services Planning
• Corporate and Systems Integration
• Strategic and Tactical Planning
• Architecture and New Systems Solutions Design and Implementation
• Planning and Implementation Leadership
• Technical and New Build Leadership
• Systems and Project Management

Joseph Mendez has been an innovator in health information management for over 15 years. As a leading figure in British Columbia's IT healthcare management space, Joseph has led and launched a number of key eHealth IM/IT initiatives.

Before joining Healthtech, Joseph was the Associate Vice President/CIO for the Northern Health Authority in British Columbia and the provincial IM/IT lead for the BC Health Authority Shared Services Organization. Over his career in health services he has successfully implemented over $100 million worth of IM/IT initiatives.

Expertise

• Extensive experience in the strategic planning and implementation of IM/IT initiatives in a senior management role
• Considerable expertise in handling eHealth strategic initiatives, including Telehealth, BC Viewer Strategy, eHealth Project Management Services, eDrug, Clinician engagements and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) projects
• Shared services business case development and implementation
• Implementation of physician clinical information systems as part of BC's eHealth strategic plan
• Experience with strategic and health planning for large technology vendors

John Flett has an extensive business background and accumulated considerable corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and management consulting experience prior to joining Healthtech. John is responsible for managing all of the corporate functions within Healthtech including finance, marketing support, HR and driving the controlled growth of the firm going forward. He also leads our Contract Services division where we place full time contract resources at various healthcare clients and is President of Healthtech Innovations, a sister company that invests in early stage healthcare technology companies. John holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University with an HBBA.

Expertise