HIT Vendors on Management Hiring Binge

Health information technology vendors in recent days have announced a series of high-profile hirings, including three hospital CIOs moving to the vendor side. Among the moves:

GE Healthcare has named Jan De Witte, currently president and CEO at its Performance Solutions division, as president and CEO of the Healthcare I.T. division (the positions are concurrent). He succeeds Vishal Wanchoo, who now is senior vice president of growth initiatives for GE India.

Payer vendor ikaSystems has appointed Joseph Marabito as president, a new position. He most recently served as vice president and general manager of consumer-directed health care at Medco Health Solutions, and previously was COO at transactions processor NaviMedix, now NaviNet. Marabito also did consulting at Accenture and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and was a senior vice president at RightCHOICE Managed Care Inc., an insurer with 1.8 million members.

Watertown, Mass.-based athenahealth Inc. has named Todd Rothenhaus, M.D., to the new position of chief medical information officer. He will report to COO Ed Park. Rothenhaus most recently was CIO at Steward Health Care (formerly Caritas Christi Health Care) and previously was medical director at Boston Medical Center's Newton Emergency Department. He began his career as an emergency department physician at Boston Medical Center.

PatientKeeper Inc. has named three new regional vice presidents: Lori DeLone, formerly CIO at Halifax Health (Southeast); Joe Diver, formerly CIO at Bassett Healthcare (Midwest); and Bill Dwyer, with previous management positions at SMS/Siemens and Eclipsys/Allscripts (Western). The company has promoted two others to regional vice president posts. Lisa Sherwin will manage relations with hospital chain HCA and Jeff Pagnini is responsible for the Northeast region.

--Joseph Goedert