STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--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.”
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.
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 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.”
About Stanford Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
Stanford Children’s Health, with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford at its core, is an internationally recognized leader in world-class, nurturing care and extraordinary outcomes in every pediatric and obstetric specialty from the routine to rare, for every child and pregnant woman. Together with our Stanford Medicine physicians, nurses, and staff, we deliver this innovative care and research through partnerships, collaborations, outreach, specialty clinics and primary care practices at more than 200 locations in the U.S. western region. As a non-profit, we are committed to supporting our community – from caring for uninsured or underinsured kids, homeless teens and pregnant moms, to helping re-establish school nurse positions in local schools. Learn more about our full range of preeminent programs and network of care at stanfordchildrens.org, and on our Healthier, Happy Lives blog. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford is the heart of Stanford Children’s Health, and is one of the nation’s top hospitals for the care of children and expectant mothers. For a decade, we have received the highest specialty rankings of any Northern California children’s hospital, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2014-15 Best Children’s Hospitals survey, and are the only hospital in Northern California to receive the national 2013 Leapfrog Group Top Children’s Hospital award for quality and patient care safety. Discover more at stanfordchildrens.org.
