Peter J. Garrison Assumes Role of Chief Information Officer at Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers
04/21/2006
-- Garrison Sets Vision for Information Technology at Saint Vincent's --
Media Contact: Michael Fagan
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers
Phone: 212/604-7965
New York, NY, January 19, 2006 -Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers (Saint Vincent's) announced today the appointment of Peter J. Garrison as Chief Information Officer. Mr. Garrison has served as Chief Information Officer at Saint Vincent's since May 2004 as a contract consultant from Speltz & Weis LLC, which was later acquired by Huron Consulting; he has resigned his position with Huron Consulting and will be relocating his family to the New York area.
'One of my top priorities is recruiting permanent leadership for Saint Vincent's to lead the organization in the years ahead, and the selection of Peter Garrison as chief information officer is a step in achieving that goal,' said Guy Sansone, chief executive officer and chief restructuring officer of Saint Vincent's. 'Under Peter's leadership, Saint Vincent's plans to invest in tools that will enable our clinical staff to more efficiently manage and coordinate the care for their patients.'
PatientKeeper(r) is one of the information technology projects that Mr. Garrison is currently piloting at St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan. It delivers essential patient information including lab results, test results, medication histories, and patient allergies directly to physicians' desktop or laptop computers, and will eventually interface with handheld mobile devices. Another initiative being piloted at St. Vincent's Manhattan is the picture archiving and communication system (PACS) -- initially in the emergency department, and by year-end throughout much of the hospital. The system allows physicians to view radiology images from anywhere in the world through the Internet, and -- when fully implemented -- will result in a 'film-less' X-ray department.
'There is a great deal of excitement among the physicians, nurses, administrators, and employees regarding the information technology initiatives that are underway and planned for Saint Vincent's, and I am looking forward to being part of the process of implementing them,' said Peter Garrison, chief information officer. 'This appointment gives me the opportunity to take a long-term view of Saint Vincent's, and help assure that we have the best technology solutions to meet our patient care and business needs.'
Since coming to Saint Vincent's, Peter's focus has been on ensuring that the information systems enabled the implementation of turnaround initiatives, and helped to create a culture of fiscal awareness and responsibility, in financial reporting, revenue cycle, and operations.
Peter's previous work includes serving as chief information officer at Tidewater Healthcare in Virginia Beach, Virginia (which later merged with Sentara Health Care), where he implemented system-wide projects, including an electronic medical record, point-of-care nursing and voice recognition systems, a physician practice management system with central billing office, a contract management system, financial and clinical decision-support systems, and web site. He also was chief information officer at a western Virginia community hospital, and performed in-house information technology duties at Saint John's Hospital in Springfield, IL.
Peter has a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY, and a Master of Health Administration from Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO.
About Saint Vincent's
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers is one of the New York metropolitan area's most comprehensive health care systems, serving nearly 600,000 people annually. SVCMC was established in 2000 as a result of the merger of Catholic Medical Centers of Brooklyn and Queens, Saint Vincents Hospital and Medical Center of New York and Sisters of Charity Healthcare in Staten Island. Sponsored by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn and the president of the Sisters of Charity of New York, SVCMC serves as the academic medical center of New York Medical College in New York City.
The system includes six hospitals: Mary Immaculate Hospital, Queens; St. John's Queens Hospital; St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan; St. Vincent's Hospital Staten Island; Bayley Seton Hospital, Staten Island; and St. Vincent's Hospital Westchester. Resources include over 2,500 physicians, four skilled nursing facilities, a system-wide home care service, a hospice and over 60 ambulatory care sites which provide a broad array of medical, psychiatric and substance abuse services. In 2004, SVCMC recorded over 92,000 inpatient discharges, more than 1,100,000 outpatient visits, and 640,000 home care visits. Its emergency rooms, which include three Level 1 trauma centers, received 255,000 visits in that same year, while SVCMC is the largest private provider of EMS services in the New York City Fire Department's 9-1-1 service. In 2003, St. Vincent's Midtown (formerly St. Clare's Hospital) became affiliated with the healthcare system.
