ECRI

Joel Nobel is the founder of ECRI, a U.S.-based nonprofit nongovernmental organization engaged in health services research. He served as president until 2001 and now devotes his efforts to developing ECRI's initiatives in the Middle East and Asia.

Since 2001, Mr. Montagnolo has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of ECRI, an internationally recognized technology assessment and patient safety organization. With a staff of over 270, ECRI is a world leader in medical technology evaluation, healthcare quality research, and evidence-based clinical assessments. In recent years, Mr. Montagnolo has focused on expanding ECRI's healthcare technology advisory services and consulting services. Today, over 2,000 hospitals, group purchasing, and governmental agencies subscribe to ECRI's "technology intelligence" membership programs to gain access to independent, objective research on the value, safety, and quality of healthcare technology. Mr. Montagnolo also works with ECRI customers and staff on client-specific consulting engagements typically focused on technology forecasting, planning, and assessment. A frequent presenter at seminars and leadership retreats, Mr. Montagnolo speaks on subjects such as the future of healthcare technology, strategic technology planning, and patient safety. Prior to 2001, Mr. Montagnolo spent 5 years on ECRI's executive team as Vice President for Technology Planning. He holds a Masters Degree in Radiation Science from Rutgers University and a dual-major undergraduate degree in Biology and English from La Salle University.

Ronni Solomon, Esq., is executive vice president and general counsel of ECRI. She has overall responsibility for ECRI's legal affairs, human resources functions, and healthcare risk management programs. She has 20 years of experience in healthcare law, risk management, and patient safety. She develops and leads many ECRI initiatives and advisory programs for both the public and private sectors of patient safety, clinical guideline development, and risk management and compliance, as well as many widely used programs, such as the Healthcare Risk Control System, the Continuing Care Risk Management System, the Center for Healthcare Environmental Management , the Operating Room Risk Management System, INsight , certification and education programs, information programs, databases, and special projects. Ms. Solomon has led and participated in numerous patient safety and risk management initiatives in the United States and internationally and has lectured and authored several chapters and articles frequently on those topics. She currently serves on the Board of the American Society of Healthcare Risk Management and the Joint Commission on Accreditation for Healthcare Organization's Sentinel Event Alerts Advisory Committee. Before coming to ECRI in 1983, Ms. Solomon worked as a risk manager at a teaching hospital, where her responsibilities included loss prevention and control, insurance, and adverse event reporting and investigation. Ms. Solomon is an attorney and a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Delaware Law School, where she received an honorary award for her studies in constitutional law. Her undergraduate studies were completed at Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

David W. Watson is vice president of ECRI's European office. Dr. Watson is responsible for the implementation, development, and operational management of ECRI activities within the European Union (EU). His responsibilities include operational management of numerous activities such as risk and quality assessment, patient safety, strategic planning, and technology management projects within numerous large hospital groups, Ministries of Health, and purchasing organizations within the EU.

G. Daniel Downing, M.B.A., C.P.A., is vice president for finance of ECRI. He is responsible for financial reporting and controls, development and implementation of sound financial plans and policies, accounting practices, and the conduct of relationships with lending institutions, creditors, and the financial community. He also directs and monitors cash management, budgeting, auditing, governmental regulatory filings, accounting, purchasing, and insurance activities. Before joining ECRI in 1989, Mr. Downing served as vice president for finance and treasurer with several firms. His 35 years of accounting and financial experience also includes five years as a certified public accountant with an international accounting firm. Mr. Downing is a C.P.A. and received his M.B.A. from Rutgers University and a B.S. in Accounting from LaSalle University. Among his professional associations are the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Jennifer Myers is ECRI's Vice President of SELECT Health Technology Services. Ms. Myers developed and directs ECRI's decision-support programs and services, which are designed to assist hospitals and health systems make sound technology and financial decisions. She develops and fosters relationships with hospital administrators and clinicians and provides needs assessment and acquisition solutions for the procurement of healthcare technology. Ms. Myers also works with numerous other constituents, including group purchasing organizations, payers, government agencies, ministries of health, and technology and software vendors. Ms. Myers has worked with project teams on consulting engagements, including strategic technology planning, technology assessment, equipment and facilities planning, and justification and selection of healthcare technology. Her knowledge of healthcare technology encompasses the full spectrum of diagnostic imaging, clinical laboratory, critical care, physiological monitoring, radiation therapy, cardiology, surgical services, information systems, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and other technologies. Ms. Myers assists in the development of valuable information systems, including pricing databases which provide benchmarking resources for capital medical technology and consumables and supplies. She oversees a team of analysts that develop custom analyses and strategies that allow hospitals to better position themselves with price negotiations. Ms. Myers instructs and gives presentations to hospitals around the world on the use of ECRI's decision-support services and how to maximize these services to their fullest potential. She is a content advisor/reviewer of ECRI's Health Technology Assessment services, Web-based forecasting tools for the evaluation of new and emerging health technologies. Ms. Myers joined ECRI in 1987 and has a bachelor of science degree in biology.

Ron Rothman is Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development. He works enterprise-wide to support strategic planning for both ECRI business development as well as client-specific consulting projects. Mr. Rothman has over 30 years of expansion and turnaround leadership experience in for-profit and nonprofit healthcare, human services, and cultural organizations. He was most recently at CIGNA Healthcare/Intracorp for 10 years; there, he directed the creation of a national Central Provider Relations Unit handling credentialing, provider relations, provider data management, and provider education for CIGNA's 200,000 physician and hospital PPO network. He later was responsible nationally for CIGNA's Intracorp public sector utilization management and disease management book of business that included customers such as the City of New York, States of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as union groups such as United Food and Commercial Workers Interstate. Prior to CIGNA, Mr. Rothman was COO and Vice President of Marketing for Fulton Longshore and Associates, a hospital/physician consulting practice. Mr. Rothman has served on numerous nonprofit boards of directors and for 15 years was executive director of nonprofit human service and cultural organizations where he led creation or expansion of programs such as artist health hazards prevention and arts education and provided exhibition opportunities and supports for professional artists. Mr. Rothman led capital campaigns and partnering with nonprofit, government and for-profit organizations, resulting in new and enlarged cultural facilities. Mr. Rothman has a bachelor of science degree in psychology from Temple University and studied nonprofit management at Wharton School of Business's Management Improvement for Cultural Organizations program.

Thomas E. Skorup, M.B.A. is ECRI's Vice President of Health Technology Planning. He is responsible for ECRI's on-site consultative service (Health Systems Group) and manages major projects with healthcare organizations. For more than 18 years, Mr. Skorup has worked closely with clients to forecast, plan, and manage the unique challenges that healthcare technology poses to healthcare service delivery. Through the development of evidence-based healthcare technology assessment and planning strategies, he has helped healthcare organizations to avoid technology pitfalls and to use technology as an "accelerator" to meet their strategic goals. As a frequent lecturer on healthcare technology innovation, Mr. Skorup has made presentations to executive teams, professional associations, ministries of health, and nongovernmental organizations. He has also written widely, including a book chapter on technology assessment and management for The AUPHA Manual for Health Services Management. He holds a master of business administration degree with a concentration in health administration from Temple University and a bachelor of science degree in biomedical engineering technology from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He has also studied abroad at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa.

Vivian H. Coates, M.B.A., is ECRI's vice president of information services and technology assessment. Ms. Coates developed and directs ECRI's technology assessment program and works to enhance the program's contribution to the healthcare community. She initiates and fosters relationships with the users of technology assessment information to promote the use of evidence-based medicine in healthcare delivery, coverage, and clinical practice guideline development. She directs the translation and dissemination of technology assessments into forms that can be used by constituents throughout the healthcare community, including policy makers, consumer advocates, and patients and their families. Ms. Coates oversees ECRI's Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC), which conducts technology assessments and develops evidence reports for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). She also is responsible for ECRI's technology assessment contract with TRICARE Management Activity, the Department of Defense agency that administers the health benefits for the U.S. Armed Services personnel and their families, reservists, and retirees. Ms. Coates has developed a number of healthcare and health technology-related information resources, including ECRI's Healthcare Standards print directory database, and TARGET, a searchable Web-deployed database of evidence reports on emerging medical technologies. Ms. Coates is project director for ECRI's contract with AHRQ to develop, implement, and maintain the National Guideline Clearinghouse , an Internet-accessible database of summaries of clinical practice guidelines and related documents. She also directs ECRI's contract with AHRQ to develop, implement, and maintain the National Quality Measures Clearinghouse , a database of healthcare quality measures and supporting documentation. Ms. Coates is responsible for the continuous development and promulgation of ECRI's Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS ), a controlled vocabulary and coding system for classifying medical products and indexing clinical, regulatory, and technical information. It has been adopted by many nations and by the European Union as the interim standard for medical devices in support of the Medical Devices Directives. Ms. Coates was a member of the Project Council for the European Union project to develop the Global Medical Device Nomenclature. Since 1991, she has directed ECRI's work with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to index unique health services research literature for NLM's bibliographic databases and to incorporate UMDNS into NLM's Unified Medical Language System. She represents ECRI on several international medical informatics standards committees, such as ISO TC 210 and CEN TC 257, and has been a member of the Global Harmonization Task Force Study Group 2 on Vigilance and Postmarket Surveillance.

David R. Demers, Westport Chief Executive Officer. Mr. David Demers is the founder of Westport Innovations Inc., and has been Chief Executive Officer since it was formed. He began his career at IBM Canada in 1978, and held several positions in Marketing and Management there before leaving to form a consulting company providing management services to early-stage technology companies. Mr. Demers was a founding partner in the Vancouver Social Venture Partners foundation, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Cummins Westport Inc., Clean Energy Fuels Corp., ECRI, and BrightSide Technologies Inc. He is Chair of the Technology Division of the United Way's 2006 Campaign Cabinet, and has also served on the advisory board for the National Research Council's IRAP program between 1999 and 2003. Mr. Demers has a Bachelor of Physics Degree and a Bachelor of Laws Degree, both from the University of Saskatchewan.