What Happened?
Westlake Village, CA-based Aptium Oncology has Promoted Wesley L. Scruggs as Chief Information Officer.
About the Company
Years before electronic medical record (EMR) was mandated and became a buzzword in healthcare, Aptium Oncology, an oncology consulting company based in Los Angeles, California, recognized the value of a single portal through which patient information could be recorded and shared. Working with the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Desert Regional Medical Center, an Aptium-affiliated facility, it launched a pilot EMR in 1998. Buoyed by its modest success with the pilot initiative, Aptium assembled a team of IT experts and clinicians from both organizations to configure a generic ambulatory EMR into a robust oncology EMR. To date, Aptium Healthcare IT Consulting has successfully customized and implemented packaged software, converting them to oncology optimized processes and applications at several ambulatory cancer centers across the country. The company continues to develop innovative IT solutions that map to the unique needs of cancer care, for the full suite of oncology programs. These include everything from fully functional CPOE and integrated Radiation Therapy 'views' to custom physician flowsheets to scheduling of drugs, assets and staff in busy infusion centers. Aptium also focuses on Siemens® products, specializing in patient accounting and collection challenges in the oncology ambulatory environment.
About the Person
As Chief Information Officer, Wes Scruggs leads Aptium Healthcare IT Consulting's team in developing oncology-specific technology solutions that deliver better information to client hospitals and enhance patient care. Wes joined Aptium Oncology in 1997 in time to tackle the Y2K and process re-engineering job designed by KPMG and Aptium management. Within a few months, his team upgraded the IT infrastructure to provide stable and cost effective platforms for all administrative, clinical and business office operations within the cancer care network. Promoted from Vice President of Information Technology to Chief Information Officer in 1999, Wes has developed a highly skilled IT department and centralized support organization that recently helped develop an EMR designed to map to the complex needs of cancer centers. Scruggs is a CHIME and HIMSS member and is active in healthcare CIO forums and organizations. He has presented extensively on EMR selection and implementation. Prior to Aptium, Wes served as Vice President of Corporate Systems at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Director of IT Operations for HealthNet. He earned his MBA from Pepperdine University.
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