BURLINGTON, Vt., March 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ImproveCareNow, the leading quality improvement and clinical research program for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in children, named four business leaders to its Board of Directors, it was announced today by founders Dr. Richard Colletti and Dr. Peter Margolis.
Steve McPhail, Chief Executive Officer of Expression Analysis, Inc., was named Chair, and the first official board meeting was held in February.
The mission of the Board is to provide advice on the operations of ImproveCareNow, guidance on financial matters, fundraising support, and recruitment of other business and civic leaders to the Board.
The new Board members are:
Steven C. McPhail - Chapel Hill, NC
Chief Executive Officer, Expression Analysis, Inc.
Steve McPhail is President and CEO of Expression Analysis, Inc., a leading laboratory in the field of research and genetic testing. His professional experience includes executing mergers and acquisitions, developing and implementing strategic business plans and establishing global customer and distribution networks. He has held positions with ArgoMed, Xanthon, TriPath Imaging, Dynex Technologies and Abbott Laboratories. Steve, who holds a BS degree in Biology from San Diego State University, is a long-standing business executive in North Carolina's biotech community and serves on the Board of Visitors at the NC Children's Hospital.
Kirk W. Walters - Shelburne, VT and Boston, MA
Senior Executive Vice President, Santander Holdings USA, Inc.
Kirk is a Senior Executive VP and is on the Board of Directors of Santander Holdings USA, Inc. He served as interim President and CEO of Sovereign Bank until it was acquired by Banco Santander. Formerly the Chief Financial Officer at the Chittenden Corporation, he previously worked at Northeast Federal Corporation at CalFed, Inc., at Atlantic Richfield Corp. (ARCO) and at Coopers & Lybrand. He holds a BA degree in accounting from the University of Southern California. Kirk is a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight and Pilots N Paws. He and his wife, Loretta, are the founders of "Lacey's Fund," which provides medical care for retired police dogs in Vermont.
Jim M. Margolis - Mill Valley, CA
Chief Executive Officer, True2o
As co-founder and CEO of True2o, Jim is a pioneer in the reduction of disposable beverage containers. He has developed four companies on the merchant side of the financial transaction market, which have provided sales, service, loyalty marketing and telecommunications technologies. His role in the founding of these companies has served to develop his expertise in the areas of early stage organizational development, partner and channel development and liquidity structuring. Jim holds a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado. He spends much of his free time enjoying the outdoors with his family.
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Alex D. Funderburg - Charlotte, NC
Managing Director, Bank of America
Alex joined Bank of America in 1989 and is currently Managing Director in the company's equipment leasing division. His professional experience includes structuring complex financial transactions, organizational restructuring and portfolio analysis. Alex holds a BA degree in economics from Amherst College and an MBA degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He currently resides, with his family, in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is involved in various community activities related to his children's interests.
ImproveCareNow is a growing program in which pediatric gastroenterologists at 30 practice sites are working together to develop, test and implement quality improvement tools to improve the care and health of thousands of children and adolescents with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. The participating sites consist of university practices, multispecialty groups, children's hospitals and 4 private practices, including 6 of the top 10 children's hospitals in the U.S. The ImproveCareNow Collaborative has developed the Model Care Guideline, has defined key measures to assess performance, has built a robust database with over 3,000 patients and 15,000 visits, has created rigorous reports to identify gaps in care and has produced a set of effective tools to improve the quality of care. The way care is delivered now has improved dramatically: the reliability of disease assessment has increased from 22% to 90% and, most importantly, the proportion of our patients who are in remission has increased from 48% to 75%.
ImproveCareNow is a recipient of a $12,000,000 federal grant to create and implement innovative informatics to enhance quality improvement and comparative effectiveness research. To see the video about ImproveCareNow by award-winning film-maker Jesse Dylan, go to www.ImproveCareNow.org.
SOURCE ImproveCareNow
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