Healthcare Informatics Program Advisory Council

Daniel Barchi

Daniel Barchi is Chief Information Officer of the $3.0 B, 2,100 bed, 19,000 employee Yale School of Medicine and the Yale-New Haven Health System. He leads a team of 500 informatics and technology specialists and has implemented a $300 M Electronic Medical Record (EMR) project.  Before joining Yale, he was Senior Vice President and CIO of the $1.4 B Carilion Health System and led the integration of Carilion’s seven hospitals and 140 physician practices though implementation of a $98 M electronic medical record. He was also responsible for technology at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. 

Daniel was previously President of the Carilion Biomedical Institute and Director of Technology and Engineering for MCI WorldCom. In both roles was appointed as CEO, COO, and Chief Restructuring Officer of privately held and venture-backed companies in the healthcare and technology industries. Earlier, Daniel was MCI's Director of Global Project Management responsible for product deployment in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Daniel began his career as a U.S. Naval officer and served at sea in cruisers. During his service, he was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal, the Southeast Asia Service Medal for service in the Red Sea, and the NATO Service Medal for operations in the Balkans.

Daniel holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Annapolis, the U.S. Naval Academy, and a Master of Engineering Management degree from Old Dominion University. He is active on several corporate and community service boards and he is a marathon runner.

Kathy Dematteo

Chief Information Officer/VP Information Technology
Western Connecticut Health Network
Danbury, CT

Todd A. Kawecki, DC

Dr. Kawecki is the Chief Health Informatics Officer for the VA Connecticut Healthcare system which includes an academic tertiary care medical center, an outpatient specialty clinic and six community based outpatient centers across the state. In this role, he has oversight for all clinical computing, including the maintenance and configuration of their electronic medical record, evaluation and implementation of all new clinical information systems and ongoing training of the medical staff. Dr. Kawecki also works with the VA New England Data Warehouse team, developing reporting solutions for both clinical and operational improvement. He completed a Post-Doctoral Special Fellowship in Medical Informatics from the Veteran's Health Administration and Yale Center for Medical Informatics, where he is a faculty member. His research interests include the impact of clinical IT systems on quality and patient safety, eHealth solutions and clinical decision support.

Richard W. Kubica, FHIMSS

Rich is the Chief Information at Hartford Hospital. As CIO, he is responsible for all the Information Systems at Hartford Hospital, an 819 tertiary care facility, a Level 1 Trauma Center and the anchor hospital for the Hartford Health Care network. Rich was Hartford Health Care’s Chief Technology Officer before his appointment to CIO at Hartford Hospital. Prior to working in healthcare, Rich spent 23 years at Northeast Utilities in systems development and IT Infrastructure.

Rich has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from the University of Connecticut. Rich also has an MBA from Northeastern University’s Executive MBA program. He is a Fellow in HIMSS, and is active in the New England Chapter of HIMSS.

Rick McCarthy

Rick McCarthy is chief information officer for St. Vincent’s Health Services.  Rick comes to St. Vincent’s with 21 years of healthcare IT experience and a proven record of leadership.

After graduating from the University of Connecticut in 1990 with a degree in Health Systems Management, Rick began a U.S. Naval career that included a variety of medical IT positions, starting as a communications officer and assistant department head at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, California, and culminating in his last position as the chief information officer at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth, VA.

In 2010-2011, he served as the chief operating officer of a NATO Multi-national Medical Unit (a Level 1 Trauma Center) in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  Rick also has a Master of Science degree in technology management from the University of Maryland University College.

In his vice president role at St. Vincent’s, Rick provides senior leadership for all IT aspects of the organization and its affiliates. His knowledge and expertise at home and abroad are valuable assets and lend a unique perspective to the team.

Rick is responsible for the facilitation and development of St. Vincent’s Health Services IT strategy and vision as well as IT architecture.  Rick is also responsible for the oversight of the day to day operations of sustaining, supporting and managing more than 130 critical systems/applications as well as the IT infrastructure.  This support is vital to the daily business and St. Vincent’s ability to provide the best of care to those in the community and region.

Rick is a certified health information management systems professional.  Rick resides in Monroe with his wife Joelle and their three children.

Sandy L. McPherson DNP, MSN, RN-BC, CPHIMS

Sandy McPherson is the Director of Clinical Informatics at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London, CT. Her team includes Pharmacy, Nursing, Medical, Imaging and Lab Informatics. She has over 20+ years experience in a hospital setting and over 10 years in informatics.

Sandy serves as Chair person of the Healthcare Informatics group at the Connecticut Hospital Association and Chair person of the Informatics Nurse group at the American Nurse Credentialing Center (ANCC). She holds her Doctorate in Nursing Practice (DNP) with a focus in Informatics and a Post Masters Certificate in Healthcare Informatics. She is Board Certified in Nursing informatics and hold her CPHIMS certification from HIMSS.

Lisa S. Stump, MS, RPh, FASHP

Mrs. Stump is a 1991 graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy and a 1993 graduate of The Ohio State University, where she earned a Masters degree in Hospital Pharmacy Administration. In 1993, Mrs. Stump also completed a 2-year pharmacy residency training program accredited by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Mrs. Stump was recognized by the New Haven Business Times in 2003 as a recipient of the Forty Under 40 Award and completed Six Sigma Leadership Green Belt Training in 2002. She is the co-author of numerous peer-reviewed publications and has been the recipient of several awards for leadership and quality in healthcare, including the Best Practices in Hospital Pharmacy Management Award in 1999 from the American Society of Health System Pharmacists, the Abbott Pharmaceuticals Health System Quality Award in 2000, the Meritorious Achievement Award from the CT Society of Health-System Pharmacists in 2001, the 2005 John D. Thompson Award for Excellence in Healthcare, the Voluntary Hospitals of America (VHA) Leadership Award for Supply Chain Management in 2005, and in 2009 was installed as a Fellow of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. In 2010 she was awared the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHiME) CIO Bootcamp Women’s Scholarship. Mrs. Stump has held a series of management and leadership positions beginning at Grant Medical Center, Columbus Ohio in 1993 and moved to Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1996 in the position, Clinical Coordinator, Drug Use Policy. She served as the Director of Pharmacy Services at Yale-New Haven Hospital from 2000 until 2008 when she assumed the position of Administrative Director, Clinical Informatics. Currently, she is Vice President at Yale New Haven Health System responsible for the implementation of Epic™ EMR and Revenue Cycle applications at the Yale New Haven Health System Hospitals, Northeast Medical Group practices, The Yale Medical Group faculty practices, and affiliated community practices. She resides in Southington, CT with her husband and three children.

Luis Taveras, Ph.D.

Dr. Luis E. Taveras is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Barnabas Health with responsibilities for information technology and biomedical engineering.  In addition to his CIO responsibilities, Dr. Taveras is also responsible for clinical quality and safety, two Accountable Care Organizations, and clinical effectives across the system. Barnabas Health is New Jersey’s largest integrated health care delivery system, providing treatment and services to more than two million patients each year. Barnabas Health offers a broad depth and breadth of services and is one of the leading health care systems in the nation, receiving widespread recognition for clinical excellence and patient safety. Barnabas Health’s network includes six acute care hospitals, two children’s hospitals, a behavioral health center, including a statewide behavioral health network, ambulatory care facilities, geriatric centers, specialized women’s health services, and comprehensive home care and hospice services. Our 4,600 doctors and 18,200 employees deliver top quality care to 1.5 million outpatients, 198,000 inpatients, and 452,000 Emergency Department patients, and deliver 18,300 babies each year.

Dr. Taveras was most recently in the same capacity at Hartford HealthCare, the largest health care network in Connecticut with over 16,900 employees and $2.4 billion in revenue and five acute care hospitals.  Two of the systems hospitals, Hartford Hospital and MidState Medical Center have been named among the nation’s 100 Most Wired hospitals by Hospitals and Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association, for several years. 

Prior to moving to his Hartford HealthCare role in 2009, Dr. Taveras served as the Program Manager for creating an internal information technology organization for The Hospital of Central Connecticut, guiding the hospital’s transition from a fully outsourced environment to an in-house model.

From 2003-2009, Dr. Taveras was a Partner with Accenture where he was responsible for leading the global pursuit of outsourcing opportunities exceeding $500 million in contract value.  Prior to that, he managed Accenture’s Products North American Practice with responsibility for outsourcing delivery covering health care, consumer and industrial business segments.

Before joining Accenture, Dr. Taveras was the Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President for St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers of New York, a $1.5 billion integrated delivery system consisting of eight hospitals as well as nursing homes, primary care clinics and behavioral health facilities.  Prior to that, he was a Senior Partner and Vice President responsible for Computer Sciences Corporation’s East Coast Health Care Practice and a member of KPMG Consulting’s Health Care Technology Practice.  Dr. Taveras also spent nearly two decades in a number of leadership positions with IBM’s Health Care and Higher Education Practices.

Dr. Taveras earned his Ph.D. at the University of Sarasota, his MBA from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Science from Wesleyan University. 

Dr. Taveras is past Chairman of the William G. Forbeck Cancer Research Foundation.  He is a resident of Ortley Beach, NJ and formerly served as president of the Ortley Beach Voters and Taxpayers Association.

Dr. Taveras is among the 100 global cross industry CIO’s who serve as advisors to the Wall Street Journal and is frequently sought by financial analyst firms for information on various aspects of the healthcare industry and the information technology industry, in general.

He has been married for 30 years and has three adult children.

Joel L. Vengco

Mr. Vengco is the Vice President of Information & Technology and Chief Information Officer at Baystate Health, one of the largest health systems in Massachusetts serving the western half of the state.  The health system has four hospitals, over 80 medical practices, a commercial health plan, and is one of the largest employers in Massachusetts with over 11,000 employees.  In his role, Mr. Vengco oversees the technology vision, strategy, and operations for the entire health system. Under his leadership, Baystate Health established the Pioneer Valley Information Exchange (PVIX), western Massachusetts’s regional health information exchange platform. He is also the founder of TechSpring, Baystate Health’s technology innovation center.

Prior to Baystate, Mr. Vengco was Vice-President and General Manager of one of the four global businesses that make up GE’s $1.58B Healthcare IT business unit.  Prior to GE, he served as Director of IT and Chief Applications Officer at Boston Medical Center (BMC) where he oversaw various enterprise HIT applications and technologies.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Vengco was a Senior Medical Informaticist at Partners HealthCare, where he led projects such as the enterprise medication terminology architecture and medication web services development.  He was also a co-founder and senior manager of the SunClinical Data Institute, a division of Eclipsys Corporation, whose mission was to develop an integrated clinical and financial national data warehouse for analytics. 

In 2010, Mr. Vengco was named one of the Top 25 Clinical Informaticists by Modern Healthcare.  That same year he was also named one of the Top 25 Information Managers by Information Management.  In 2013 and 2014, Mr. Vengco was named as one of the 100 CIOs To Know by Becker’s Hospital Review.

Mr. Vengco is a senior fellow at Boston University’s Health Policy Institute.  He holds an undergraduate degree from Boston College and has Masters degrees from Harvard University and Boston University School of Medicine.