Executive and Steering Committees

Robert T. Adamson, PharmD, FASHP
Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Epic Implementation

Fun facts and more

Facility and Care Model: The Health System

What excites Robert most about Epic: A unified health record will allow our patients to have a voice in their care.

Fun fact: I am very passionate about wine and playing drums.

Stephen O’Mahony, MD
Senior Vice President and Chief Health Information Officer

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Corporate Office

What excites Stephen most about Epic: This will enable us to deliver the best possible care and highest level of satisfaction. An underlying barrier to achieving high reliability has been the fragmented systems we have had to work around for years. This is a great platform to help unite us for a common goal across the entire enterprise.

Fun fact: My soccer league plays outside all year round, unless the snow is too high to shovel off the turf!

Robert T. Adamson, PharmD, FASHP
Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Epic Implementation

Fun facts and more

Facility and Care Model: The Health System

What excites Robert most about Epic: A unified health record will allow our patients to have a voice in their care.

Fun fact: I am very passionate about wine and playing drums.

Jim Andrews, MHL
Senior Vice President, Cardiac and Neurosciences Service Lines

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Corporate Office and System Service Lines

What excites Jim most about Epic: We will have aggregated data to make meaningful strategic decisions on population health; increased data integrity; additional controls to improve quality; improved operational efficiency; and more in-depth metric reporting to support all of the above.

Fun fact: When writing, I make the letter O clockwise.

Frank A. Ghinassi, PhD, ABPP
Senior Vice President, Behavioral Health and Addictions Service Line, RWJBH, and President and CEO, University Behavioral Health Care

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Academic Medical Centers

What excites Frank most about Epic: The instantaneous exchange of vital patient health information, allowing for coordinated treatment planning, smooth transitions across levels of care, and across facilities, and enhanced patient safety and experiences of care.

Fun fact: I paid for college by working summers in the blast furnace at United States Steel Homestead Works plant in Pittsburgh. And, from 2004 to 2016 I was the team psychologist for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Nancy Holecek, MHA, MAS, RN
Executive Vice President, Chief Nursing Officer

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Facility and Care Model: Northern Region

What excites Nancy most about Epic: That we will be able to connect our clinicians to our patients and share data across the continuum.

Fun fact: I have my boating license.

Michael E. Knecht, FACHE
Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Corporate Functional Leader

What excites Michael most about Epic: I am most excited by the prospect that after nearly four years post-merger, all team members will finally be operating from the same “place” and having one common platform from which they can deliver care.

Fun fact: I walked the Great Wall of China during the dead of winter.

Laura Lark
Vice President, Emergency and Hospitalist Medcine Service Line

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: RWJBH Emergency Departments

What excites Laura most about Epic: The unified platform for running reports, metrics and measurements, having a common language across the system and reducing siloed work.

Fun fact: I played the cello for nine years.

Deborah Larkin-Carney, RN, BSN, MBA

Senior Vice President, Patient Safety & Quality

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Facility and Care Model: System Oversight of Patient Safety & Quality

What excites Deborah most about Epic: It will provide a platform for the same mental model and a consistent approach to care while being supported by national best practices.

Fun fact: I am right-brain dominant.

Stephen O’Mahony, MD
Senior Vice President and Chief Health Information Officer

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Corporate Office

What excites Stephen most about Epic: This will enable us to deliver the best possible care and highest level of satisfaction. An underlying barrier to achieving high reliability has been the fragmented systems we have had to work around for years. This is a great platform to help unite us for a common goal across the entire enterprise.

Fun fact: My soccer league plays outside all year round, unless the snow is too high to shovel off the turf!

Joe Scargle
Senior Vice President, Revenue Cycle

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Corporate Office

What excites Joe most about Epic: Epic will provide a highly-integrated system that has been needed to tie all facets of our health system together more seamlessly.

Fun fact: I was a lead singer in an 80s cover band.

Susan Solometo
System Vice President of Strategy, Oncology Services

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Health system responsibility for all eleven oncology programs from AMC to Community Hospitals

What excites Susan most about Epic: That we will have the ability to have all of the patient’s information in one record, no matter where the patient presents in the health system.

Frank A. Sonnenberg, MD, FACP, FACMI
Chief Medical Informatics Officer and Professor of Medicine-Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Faculty Practice, New Brunswick and other Central New Jersey Sites, Multi-Specialty Medical Group

What excites Frank most about Epic: There are two things that excite me most about Epic. One is that we will have a single data platform across the entire clinical enterprise. This will save an enormous amount of time for clinicians, will improve care for patients and will greatly facilitate large-scale research. The second is that adopting a state-of-the-art clinical system will allow us to provide a much better experience for patient engagement and adopt many best practices with much less effort compared to that required for our current less-capable systems.

Fun fact: I played keyboards professionally in a rock band when I was a teenager.

Deanna Sperling, RN
Chief Operating Officer, RWJBH Behavioral Health Network

Fun fact and more

Facility and Care Model: Behavioral Health

What excites Deanna most about Epic: It truly is a move towards one foundational system. This will provide a huge opportunity to establish best practices, standardize care across the enterprise and help support a culture of safety, moving all of us forward and together.

Fun fact: My favorite pastime is cooking and baking. I grew up in a very small rural town and began to love cooking while growing up as a member of the local 4-H club. I later worked in a restaurant as an assistant to the chef while attending college.

Suzanne Spernal, DNP, APN-BC, RNC-OB
Vice President of Women’s Services, RWJBarnabas Health, was named one of the 2020 Modern HealthcareTop 25 Innovators.

Spernal is responsible for the leadership, strategy and management of the RWJBarnabas Health Women’s Service line. This network encompasses eight maternity programs supporting approximately 24,000 births every year in New Jersey.

Her tasks and responsibilities include assessing key issues and building support for policy agenda related to women’s and family issues, executing solutions and strategies, developing and maintaining partnerships with community-based organizations, creating educational programs as well as mentoring women’s services nursing leaders.