Leadership

Todd brings a wealth of knowledge, industry experience and innovation to the health information exchange space where he has worked in leadership positions over the past ten years. He joined Healthix in 2015 as the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, providing the vision, strategy and day-to-day operational leadership for all technical aspects of the company.

During his tenure at Healthix, Todd has driven the organization’s rapid growth and innovative change, fulfilling the critical role of building and leading Healthix’s information technology function through the implementation of next generation application software and completing the technical systems merger of several HIE organizations that make up Healthix today. Healthix, one of the largest publicly funded HIEs in the nation, manages records of over 20 million individuals, with data coming from over 8,000 participating healthcare facilities across New York State.

Todd has served as a subject matter expert in healthcare technology at conferences worldwide, and on national and international panels. He has also authored a number of publications, most recently as a contributor to Health Information Exchange: Navigating and Managing a Network of Health Information Systems, 2nd Edition 2022, edited by Brian E. Dixon, PhD, MPA.

Before joining Healthix, Todd served as the Chief Technology Officer at HealthInfoNet, Maine’s State HIE. With 20+ years of professional experience, primarily in directing technical projects, he has provided business and consulting services to a range of Fortune 100 companies and many government agencies, including the Department of Defense.

Todd has a master’s degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont. He holds several certifications, among them, Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer (CHCIO) and Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and is a graduate of the Daniel Hanley Center for Health Leadership program.

Vivienne DeStefano is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Healthix. In this role, Vivienne provides leadership and oversight for Healthix branding and digital media, corporate communications and community advocacy to bring key messages to the healthcare community, legislators and other key stakeholders. She directs the development of branding campaigns, promoting Healthix services and its value proposition. Additionally, Vivienne oversees operations for administration, facilities management and human resources. She is responsible for the development of training and organizational development materials. In her prior role as Vice President of Corporate Communications, she spearheaded content development, supporting companywide efforts in exceeding New York State funding metrics.

With more than 20 years of diverse experience in the health care industry, Vivienne has assumed positions of increasing responsibility in program development and process improvement. Spending more than 11 years in the health information exchange (HIE) space, Vivienne is a pioneer in driving early HIE adoption by executing innovative marketing strategies and audit tools.

Vivienne was the Director of Membership and Outreach at Brooklyn Health Information Exchange (BHIX), which merged with Long Island Patient Information eXchange in 2013 to form Healthix. At BHIX, Vivienne implemented compliance and training programs and managed multimillion-dollar grants. She also worked at St. Vincent’s Hospital as the Administrative Director where she supervised clinical operations and launched a state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment center.

Vivienne holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Media from Hunter College.

John S. Guastella, CPA is Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer for Healthix. He is responsible for all finance, accounting, budgeting, financial and tax reporting, insurance, human resources and administration activities. He is a member of our Finance Committee and is the main liaison with the company’s independent auditors and tax advisors. John has significant business and financial experience with entities that are poised for fast-paced growth in the technology space. Prior to joining Healthix, John was the Senior VP of Finance, Treasurer, and Secretary for FatWire Corporation for 12 years. FatWire was a developer of enterprise software that was acquired by Oracle in 2011. John joined FatWire as its Controller and helped the company grow from a small start-up with just a few million in revenue to a worldwide entity, with operations in 12 foreign countries and revenues of approximately $40 million. He played an integral role in building the firm’s world-class financial function from scratch, and also played a significant role in the successful sale to Oracle.

Prior to joining FatWire, John held positions of increasing responsibility at several other entities. He was the Controller at New York-based Andin International, a manufacturer and distributor of fine jewelry products. Prior to Andin, John was the Director of Internal Audit at Henry Schein, Inc., an international distributor of dental, medical, and other healthcare supplies. John began his career at BDO, the international accounting and consulting firm, where he progressed to the level of Senior Audit Manager. He is a Certified Public Accountant in New York State.

Tom has worked in information technology for over 20 years including software development, business process re-engineering and management in government, financial services, telecommunications, professional publishing, life sciences and health care. He is currently the Senior Vice President of Innovation for Healthix, a leading health information exchange (HIE) providing services in metro New York City to millions of patients and thousands of providers from hospitals, physician practices, home health agencies, nursing homes and managed care organizations. In addition to leading several major interoperability initiatives, Tom works closely with Healthix members to define and design information services to support improvements in care coordination across disparate organizations.

Nick brings 40 years of computing and electronics experience to Healthix. His career began working on Nuclear Missiles and Weapons Systems for the US Navy. He worked as a Dicom engineer in the early days of PACS systems, served as the Senior IT Director of a large multi-hospital IDN, VP of Global Client Engagement for an HIE/ACO vendor, the CTO of the New York eHealth Collaborative, and as the Executive Director of the New York Care Information Gateway. Additionally, he is a certified CISSP and Certified Ethical Hacker. Nick holds current certifications on Cisco products and the Linux operating system, as well as a Master’s Degree in Information Systems.

John Chow has more than 30 years of information technology experience, focusing specifically on information security for the past decade. In his prior role as the Director of Information Security at Healthix, John maintained leadership positions in both IT operations and information security. Previously, John served as IT Operations Team Lead and Information Security Analyst at IBM for over 16 years. Before joining Healthix, he also worked as an Information Security Engineer/Analyst.

John is a well-respected expert on security maintenance and assessment for SAS70, SSAE16, SOC-Type1/2, ISO-2700x, SARB-OX, PCI, CIS, NIST, HIPAA, and HITRUST requirements, excelling in support and security maintenance and assessment of desktop, server, virtual and network environments. He also has extensive experience in identity and access management, configuration management, vulnerability management and risk management. In 2018, John successfully helped lead the effort to obtain HITRUST CSF Certification for Healthix systems, including InterSystems HealthShare, Health Insight and HBI Spotlight Analytics.

Arsella has 15 years of experience in managed care operations, working with health plans and holding leadership positions in operations and business development. She has played a pivotal role in the development of the value-based payment methodology in New York State and has worked on contracts resulting in a total savings of $8 million. Arsella’s most recent experience involved collaborating with the DHA on a national platform to add managed long-term care benefits for Tricare Care for Life beneficiaries. She worked closely with various state legislators to garner support for coverage for 48,000 eligible individuals.

Arsella is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt-certified professional with additional certifications in Product Management, Claims Auditing, and Contract Administration. She holds an MBA from Colorado Technical University. A proud Veteran of the USAF, Arsella continues her service with the Medical Reserve Corp.

Kimberly Francois is the Vice President of Project Management and Innovation at Healthix. Kimberly’s professional career in health information technology is extensive, spanning over 15 years. Kimberly has worked at Healthix for seven years, with extensive professional experience in Project Management. She leads a team of Project Managers in the Healthix Project Management Office, managing, among other things, the implementation of Reference Lab integration as part of the Governor’s Executive Order to leverage the SHIN-NY in the fight against COVID-19.

Prior to working in the HIE arena, Kimberly held positions at AT&T Bell Labs, Prudential Financial, Qwest Communications, Accenture, Princeton Healthcare System, Einstein Healthcare Network, Mt Sinai Health System, and NYU Langone Medical Center. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Harvard University, a Master of Science in Project Management from George Washington University and Lean Six Sigma and Green Belt Certifications.

Stephanie’s Bio coming soon!

Eric Widen joins Healthix as Vice President of Sales and Strategy with the aim of identifying new products and markets for Healthix to deliver value into. Eric is a diverse healthcare leader with a strong track record of helping organizations strategize, plan, and achieve significant growth and operational improvements through technology adoption. Eric’s background includes a variety of healthcare experiences spanning strategy software development, start-up growth, hospital operations, performance improvement and electronic health record adoption and optimization. Eric most recently came from Komodo Health here he was responsible for market strategy for the payer and provider segment.

Geri’s Bio coming soon!

Magdalena joined Healthix in May of 2018. She is a healthcare professional with over 20 years of experience in management of clinical practice operations, revenue cycle management, research compliance as well as health system compliance and privacy programs oversight. In her professional career, Magdalena held positions with private physician practices as well as large academic medical centers and health systems before joining Healthix. Her broad experience, deep knowledge of federal and state policy/regulations and dedication to privacy and security has matured the Healthix Compliance Program over these past 4 years.

Magdalena holds a master’s degree in Public Health Administration from the Columbia University, a Bachelor degree in Finance and Investments from the Baruch, CUNY and professional certifications related to healthcare compliance (CHC) and privacy oversight (CHPC). She held professional coding certification for close to 20 years and is a graduate of the Columbia University Department of Health Policy and Management certificate program in The Health System Simulation, which was focused on providing an opportunity to experience the challenges of executive leadership and strategic decision-making in a competitive healthcare environment.

Sue-Ann Villano brings many years of experience in healthcare operations, management, and marketing to her role at Healthix. Over the last eight years, her focus has been primarily on the health information exchange space with an emphasis on meeting state deliverables, performance metrics and service delivery to clients. She has worked with current and past leadership to successfully merge both eHealth Network of Long Island with the Interboro Regional Health Information Organization and more recently, the New York Care Information Gateway with Healthix.

As AVP, Support Services, Sue-Ann leads the Customer Support department at Healthix.  In this role, her priorities include managing the flow of incoming requests from customers, increasing utilization and customer satisfaction with Healthix products and services, and working with her team to strategize and implement existing processes employed in our daily interactions with participants. Successful collaboration with all departments at Healthix is required to meet the needs of and optimize the experience of our customers.

Sue-Ann specializes in client relationship building and developing strategies to resolve issues of multidisciplinary teams composed of clinicians, medical office support staff, and payers to improve access and utilization of comprehensive health data. Prior to working in the HIE arena, Sue-Ann held positions at Stony Brook Medicine, Columbia University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Care Administration from LIU/C.W. Post and a master’s in public administration from the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.