ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading commercial provider of open source information technology solutions for the healthcare industry, announced today that Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, will be expanding his role by assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer, in addition to his current position as Chairman of the Board, effective December 1, 2005. As CEO, Kizer will leverage his more than 25 years of experience in healthcare to focus and direct Medsphere’s rapid growth in the healthcare IT sector. Former CEO Larry Augustin will continue to assist Medsphere as a board member and strategic advisor to the company.
Kizer has long been an advocate of information technology as an enabler for improving healthcare safety and quality. He recognized the critical importance of healthcare IT when he was Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and pioneered the system-wide implementation of an electronic health record, bar code medication administration, and other IT innovations years before the healthcare industry embraced the importance of IT.
“In my new role as CEO, I will be able to focus on broadly disseminating a proven healthcare IT solution that has been adapted and improved for commercial healthcare use,” said Kizer. “I believe that Medsphere’s approach to healthcare IT represents a disruptive technology that has the potential to fundamentally change the healthcare IT paradigm and revolutionize the whole industry.”
For the past 6 years, Kizer has been the President and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF), a Washington, DC-based private, voluntary consensus standards setting organization devoted to improving American healthcare through public reporting of healthcare performance data, among other things. In recognition for his efforts to improve healthcare quality in the U.S., this week Kizer is being awarded the 2005 Ernest A. Codman Award (in the individual category) by The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).
“Ken Kizer is an internationally respected healthcare leader. His vision, experience and leadership will add enormous value to our company,” said Chief Technology Officer and Medsphere Co-Founder, Steve Shreeve. “Ken’s pioneering advocacy for healthcare performance measurement and quality, coupled with his understanding of the transformational role that information technology can play in healthcare delivery, are a perfect fit for our organization. His vision for the future of healthcare will be an excellent guide for Medsphere’s technology and product strategy.”
Prior to NQF, Kizer served for 5 years as the Under Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In this capacity, Dr. Kizer was the highest ranking physician in the federal government and the chief executive officer of the veterans health care system. He has been widely recognized as being the chief architect and driving force behind the radical transformation of VA healthcare that occurred between 1995 and 1999. Today, the VA is recognized as a model of excellence in patient safety and healthcare quality due to Dr. Kizer’s leadership and aggressive quality improvement agenda. The VA is the largest integrated health care system in the U.S., having a present budget of some $30 billion, approximately 200,000 staff and more than 1,300 sites of care delivery.
Dr. Kizer succeeds Larry Augustin as Medsphere’s CEO. Augustin joined Medsphere in January 2005, subsequent to the company’s series B funding. He had been with Azure Venture Capital in Palo Alto, California, prior to that. Before that he was the CEO and Founder of VA Software.
“Medsphere has continued to meet the technology, product, and service milestones enabled by the Series B funding. We have formalized our organizational structure, brought in key management personnel, solidified our open source strategy, and engineered the technology to make it accessible and affordable, bringing a robust product to market,” said Augustin. “The company is now entering a new phase aimed at rapidly disseminating its open source healthcare IT products and reshaping the nation’s healthcare IT vision. Dr. Kizer’s leadership will give Medsphere the healthcare experience and industry expertise to take the company to that next level. I look forward to continuing to help drive the company’s growth.”
In addition to Medsphere, Augustin currently serves on the board of directors for VA Software, the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), Linux International, Linux Mark Institute, JBoss, SugerCRM, Pentaho and Fonality.
About Medsphere Systems Corporation
Medsphere is the leading commercial provider of open source technology for the healthcare industry. The company is revolutionizing healthcare by delivering commercially supported software based on the proven VistA electronic health record (EHR) developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Under the brand name of OpenVista(R), Medsphere offers a portfolio of products and professional services for hospitals, clinics and integrated delivery networks. The company addresses the capital constraints of the healthcare industry through an innovative subscription-based pricing model. Medsphere’s experienced team of healthcare technology professionals and unique suite of rapid implementation tools deliver unprecedented time to value recognition. For more information, visit www.medsphere.com.
Medsphere(R), the Medsphere logo and OpenVista(TM) are trademarks in the
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Medsphere Systems Corporation
CONTACT: Frank Pecaitis, Vice President, Sales and Marketing of MedsphereSystems Corporation, +1-949-297-4072, frank.pecaitis@medsphere.com; orSyreeta Mussante of Sparkpr, +1-415-321-1865, syreeta@sparkpr.com, forMedsphere
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