Chief Information Officer at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford Receives Prestigious Award for a Career of Outstanding Achievements

For Release: November 10, 2014

STANFORD, Calif. – The College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has presented Ed Kopetsky, chief information officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, with its Distinguished Achievement Award.

In a presentation on Oct. 24, the college, along with its Industrial and Systems and Engineering Department, bestowed the award in a recognition of Kopetsky’s extraordinary career.

“I am very thankful for this honor,” said Kopetsky, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial & systems engineering from UW-Madison in 1978 and 1981, respectively. “I grew up in Wisconsin, and will always have a place in my heart for the university and the College of Engineering. The success I have achieved is largely due to the education and experience I gained there.”

Information Week recognizes Ed Kopetsky

That success led Information Week to recognize Kopetsky in 2013 as one of the top 20 CIOs driving change in the U.S. healthcare system. As noted by the College of Engineering, Kopetsky has been an innovator in the health-care IT field for years.

Ed Kopetsky, our chief information officer, received a Distinguished Achievement Award on October 24, 2014, from the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the award ceremony are, L-R, Dave Gustafson, emeritus research professor; Kopetsky; and Ian Robertson, dean of the College of Engineering.

In the early 1990s, Kopetsky implemented one of the first integrated patient care systems supporting a multi-hospital and physician network at Sharp Healthcare. His focus on change through leadership in information technology and process improvement has helped multiple health-care businesses grow and develop. In 1996, Kopetsky became CIO at the formation of Centura Health, which became the largest health-care system in Colorado. Later at Healthlink, he led development of the company’s health-care consulting business in the western United States, and subsequently led all sales and customer service in the U.S. Following tremendous growth and success, Healthlink was acquired by IBM and Kopetsky stayed on to assure successful integration and continued growth,

In 2014, as CIO at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, Kopetsky completed a three-year implementation of state-of-the-art enterprise systems in support of integrated patient care, high-performance business and analytics systems, and the connection of patient and consumer systems through new web technologies.

His influence in the industry is considerable. He was a founding member and board chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, is currently an advisory board member for Dell and Hewlett Packard, and also chairs the industry advisory board for the UW-Madison Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Looking back on his time at UW-Madison, Kopetsky pointed to an interest in improving how things work, thus steering him to industrial and systems engineering. “I especially was inspired by Professor David Gustafson, who I had the chance to learn from and work under on numerous healthcare initiatives,” said Kopetsky of the emeritus research professor. “I saw the opportunity to contribute to improving patient care and health-care operations. Work outside of the classroom taught me critical people and change leadership skills.”

Kopetsky said he cherishes the Distinguished Achievement Award. “I feel very humble receiving this award,” he said. “I know it’s a recognition of accomplishment, but I share it with my family, my mentors, my team and everyone who has taken me under their wing, given me flight and supported me throughout my career”.

Authors

Media contact:
Robert Dicks
(650) 497-8364
rdicks@stanfordchildrens.org