OCHIN Leadership

OCHIN’s leadership has substntial expertise leading the implementing of practice management, electronic health records, and other health information technology applications across a range of community health organizations ranging in size from small rural to large urban public health systems to help achieve quality, delivery, and operational efficiencies and results.

Abigail Sears, Chief Executive Officer, is responsible for the overall strategy and executive leadership at OCHIN. She was OCHIN’s first employee and project director in 2000 and quickly rose to chief operating/strategic officer in 2003 and CEO in 2007. A prominent national speaker and advisor with 15 years of public healthcare expertise, Abigail is focused on building a premier  information and technology network leveraging Health IT products, services, and the use of practice-based research to help public health centers and private practices nationwide to achieve federal and industry standards for healthcare delivery, quality, cost control.

Sean Whiteley-Ross, Chief Financial Officer, is responsible for OCHIN’s overall financial reporting, budgeting, and forecasting as well as monitoring OCHIN’s internal controls. He spent seven years at PWC and Grant Thornton where he became an senior audit manager specializing in high technology and non-profit organizations. Sean has been the controller for a publically traded software company in Portland, Oregon and spent six years as vice president of finance at SmithBucklin in Chicago, the nation’s largest service provider to trade associations and non-profit organization prior to joining OCHIN. During Sean’s tenure, OCHIN has grown from $9 million in total revenue to an estimated $18 million in fiscal year 2011.

Paul Matthews, Chief Technology Officer, is the principal architect and has overall responsibility for OCHIN’s national Health IT infrastructure. He has over 23 years of experience designing and implementing large scale information systems around the world including in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and here in the U.S. For the past 10 years, Paul has focused exclusively on Health IT and secure information exchange and currently serves on the Nationwide Health Information Exchange (HwHIN) Coordinating Committee, Epic Corporation’s CareEverywhere Governance Committee, and the State of Oregon Health Information Technology Oversight Council Technology Workgroup.

Susan Chauvie, Vice President for Practice Transformation, serves as the principle liaison between OCHIN’s clinical leaders and scientific researchers for clinical quality improvement and research collaborations. She was OCHIN’s chief clinical officer from 2004 to 2010 where she championed the importance of clinical quality improvement and practice-based research as a springboard to meaningful practice change. Susan is a health care quality improvement advisor and a founding member of OCHIN’s practice-based research network. She is currently a co-investigator of nine AHRQ, HRSA, NIH and NMIH grants.

Phillip Skiba, Vice President for Business Services, is responsible for multiple services lines including centralized billing, system billing and claims configurations, group purchasing, and an array of consulting services designed to help providers successfully adopt and achieve “meaningful use” of their Health IT products. A former CFO for the Kaiser Dental Group in Portland, Oregon and Director of Financial Operations at Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas, Texas, Phil has substantial experience in providing health care delivery services as well as financial and staff leadership at prominent provider practices and networks.

Kevin Geoffroy, Vice President for Epic Operations, is responsible for management of OCHIN’s hosted Epic practice management and electronic health record system, including integration of these systems across multiple organizations to support health information exchange and meaningful use. He is currently leading the rapid growth of the OCHIN collaborative–the largest public network of health centers using a centrally hosted enterprise electronic health record. Kevin has over 20 years of operations management, account management, and project delivery experience, and has worked with organizations such as Sapient Corporation, Arcadia, and Innovatix.

Jennifer DeVoe, MD, DPhil, Executive Director of OCHIN’s practice-based research network (“Safety Net West”), is focused on developing the capacity to leverage OCHIN’s EHR data for research and refining processes for linking OCHIN data with state Medicaid data to inform practice transformation. She obtained her MD from Harvard Medical School in 1999 and her DPhil from Oxford University 2001. She completed her residency in family medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University in 2004 and received a master’s in clinical research from OHSU in 2010.  She is currently the principal investigator for OCHIN’s research node of the national Community Health Applied Research Network (CHARN) and maintains a part-time clinical practice in Portland.

Clayton Gillett, Executive Director of OCHIN’s Oregon Health Information Technology Extension Center (O-HITEC), is responsible for the development and execution of the federally-subsidized Health IT extension center for the State of Oregon. He served as the associate director of clinical informatics at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound and was a consultant for several years responsible for the development of implementation plans, Stark donation plans, the development of health information exchanges. He was also OCHIN’s chief operating officer prior to assuming responsibilities for the extension center. Clayton has over 20 years’ experience providing Health IT and consulting services to a range of public and private health insurers and providers and is working to evolve O-HITEC into a permanent division at OCHIN to support practices working to achieve subsequent stages of Meaningful Use of their EHRs.

Harry “Chip” Taylor, MD, MPH Medical Director Oregon Health Information Technology Extension Center (O-HITEC), helps practices to implement and achieve Meaningful Use of their EHRs in primary care practices across Oregon. Since 2008, he has been an assistant professor at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) and the medical director for the Gabriel Park Teaching Clinic where he also practices. Chip served 22 years as a clinician leader in Navy Medicine and has extensive experience in quality improvement, practice transformation, patient safety training as well as telemedicine and EHR management in two major regional health systems.

Ruby Haughton-Pitts, Vice President for Marketing and Communications, is responsible for communications and outreach initiatives. She has over 20 years’ experience as a political and strategic communications professional in financial services, healthcare, and non-profit environments and has served as a vice president of government relations for U.S. Bank and Bank of America as well as the director of public affairs for CareOregon. Ruby also worked as a full-time communications consult developing and managing complex local and national communication programs. Over the course of her career, she has provided government relations, media relations, and community advocacy assistance to private businesses and nonprofits.

Glenn Kulm, Vice President, Central Oregon Operations, is responsible for directing and supporting the Bend staff in sales, service and support of OCHIN products and services in addition to helping medical providers and clinics to achieve the federal EHR Meaningful Use requirements. He has more than 25 years experience in healthcare management, most recently as the Deputy Director of the Santa Cruz County (California) Health Services where he was responsible for clinical, administrative and finance activities for a multifaceted $130M physical and behavioral health organization. He previously served as the Assistant Director, then Director of Mental Health Services in that organization. Prior to his tenure with Santa Cruz, he was the Fiscal Operations Manager for the County of Riverside, California.