MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Merge Healthcare, an IBM Company, is revving-up in Canada as part of its global Geo Expansion. Nancy Koenig, General Manger of Merge Healthcare is pleased to announced five appointments to the team in Canada. These five professionals bring a wealth of expertise to Merge Healthcare, a leading provider of innovative enterprise imaging, interoperability and clinical systems that seek to advance healthcare.

Simon Wong

Simon Wong joins Merge Healthcare, an IBM Company, as operations manager and brings over 10 years of medical imaging experience. His area of focus is on PACS, Enterprise Archive, and Clinical IT systems. Prior to his current role, Simon led enterprise deployments of RIS, PACS, and Enterprise Archive as project manager in Merge Healthcare. In addition to his healthcare experience in Canada, Simon has led multi-site PACS projects in EMEA and the UK. As a vendor consultant, Simon has worked closely with RAD-AID International to support PACS adoption in developing countries. Prior to his private sector career, Simon held positions at North York General Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre as a medical radiation technologist. As an active contributor to professional practice, Simon has taught interdisciplinary and clinical courses as an affiliate instructor at The Michener Institute. Simon is a member of The College of Medical Radiation Technologists of Ontario, a Queen’s University Alumni, and recently completed his MBA in 2015.

George Gorthy

George Gorthy, regional sales manager, Eastern Canada, has joined Merge Healthcare as part of the IBM acquisition. Prior to Merge, George worked eight years within IBM Canada providing expertise in the areas of medical imaging and mobility. Before IBM, George worked eight years for a global imaging solutions provider as a project engineer and product manager. In the public sector George worked as a RIS/PACS administrator and ultrasound department manager. With over 25 years of healthcare IT and industry experience, George brings the following expertise to the Merge team:

• Subject material expertise in provincial imaging solution architecture
• Project management of clinical information system and integrated medical imaging system implementations
• RFP technical and clinical requirements development for provincial and local solutions
• Clinical system and clinical transformation assessments.

George’s academic background includes Diplomas in Radiography and Ultrasound, Bachelor of Health Administration and a Masters of Business Administration (IT Management). Most recently George graduated with “distinction” from IBM’s Global Sales School.

Larry Sylvestre

Larry Sylvestre joins as regional sales manager, Western Canada. Larry brings 20 years of experience in the health IT industry to Merge Healthcare, an IBM Company. He is a recognized expert and pioneer in digital health technologies, and has held leadership positions with health regions, ministries of health, community clinic groups, and federal agencies. Over the course of his career, Larry has led some of the first and largest efforts to digitize radiology in Canada. As a consultant, Larry has been called upon by several private and public healthcare organizations to author their IT strategies. Larry has also been active in the healthcare community as a past member of the Conference Board of Canada and as a board member at Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) Canada. Larry is a biomedical technologist and has an MBA from the University of Calgary.

Tricia Staples

Tricia Staples joins Merge Healthcare, an IBM Company, as business development executive, Global Eye Care. She has extensive experience designing and implementing innovative solutions to support healthcare service delivery improvement. Tricia is leading the enhancement of Merge Healthcare’s eye care image management solutions, while providing an increased level of customer focus. Her expertise in managing clinical business initiatives have been applied to hospitals and specialty centres in urban, rural and remote locations in Canada and abroad. Working with communities, specialists, and business partners on any given project, Tricia’s dedication and judgment complement her technical knowledge and her stakeholder engagement expertise. Tricia completed her MBA at Queen’s University, as a part of the Health Services Management Co-op Program.

David Chang

David Chang brings 16 years of experience in the health IT/Imaging industry to Merge Healthcare, an IBM Company. He is recognized in the industry having trained with various VAR/OEMs and has deployed multiple systems in Canada, US, Latin America, Europe and other regions. Over the course of his career, David has had multiple assignments, including technical support, trainer, product management, project manager, pre-sales, sales and operations manager. David is an avid traveller, having been to over 45 countries in the world. He is also fluent in English, Chinese (Mandarin) and Spanish. David has a diploma in computer programming and a BA from York University.

Merge’s enterprise and cloud-based technologies for image intensive specialties provide access to any image, anywhere, any time. Merge also provides clinical trials software with end-to-end study support in a single platform and other intelligent health data and analytics solutions. With solutions that have been used by providers for more than 25 years, Merge is helping to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and enhance the quality of healthcare worldwide. For more information, visit merge.com and follow us @MergeHealthcare.