An executive who has specialized in everything from linking hospitals with radiologists to connecting electronic health records quietly took the helm of Arlington-based e-prescribing giant Surescripts LLC last week.
Tom Skelton officially became chief executive officer of the company about five months after the departure of Harry Totonis.
Skelton was tapped to help Surescripts in a “critical point in its growth,” Douglas Hoey, a co-chairman of the company’s board, said in a statement that was released online but otherwise appeared to go unpublicized. “Tom will play a key role as we continue to perfect e-prescribing and expand our clinical network to create a comprehensive, unified healthcare system that improves care outcomes, increases efficiency and decreases costs.”
Surescripts is the developer of the nation’s leading network for sharing digital prescriptions and pharmacy records, with more than 6 billion secure health transactions crossing its network annually. The company reports it connects 70 percent of physicians and 95 percent of community pharmacies for electronic prescribing and the exchange of electronic health records among more than 100 health systems every year.
Skelton is a board member for the business software company Micro Focus, which has its U.S. headquarters in Rockville. He was most recently the CEO of the Pittsburgh-based teleradiology firm Foundation Radiology Group.
Skelton previously held leadership roles with MED3000, an electronic health record and medical billing software company that is part of McKesson. He also previously led Misys Healthcare Systems, now Allscripts-Misys ( NASDAQ: MDRX), a $600 million software company specializing in part in e-prescribing and electronic health records technology.
Koleman Karleski, managing director of Louisville-based firm Chrysalis Ventures, told our sister publication the Pittsburgh Business Times back in 2010 that Skelton brings serious brainpower in the health tech space. “Tom has spent virtually all of his career trying to make health care more productive through the use of technology, and he has a strong track record of successfully doing that,” he said.
