E VERET T WEISS
Dr. Everett Weiss is making an impact in the healthcare industry as the chief medical information
officer at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York.
A figures champion brings his sense of concentration, discipline to medicine
BY LOIS ELFMAN “Compulsory figures represent a
discipline of execution and perfection,” said Dr. Everett Weiss, three-time U.S. figures champion, twice in seniors (1996 and 1997) and once as a junior (1993). “While all of figure skating is an art,
compulsory figures were merciless — your work was forever etched in the ice for the judges to scrutinize every marking — well, at least until the Zamboni erased any evidence of your efforts,” he continued. “My coaches were incredible. Teir appreciation and application of mathematics, geometry, skill and precision had a tremendous impact on me. “I have carried this attention to detail,
arguably perfectionism, to a fault throughout my studies and professional career, and this has served me well in an occupation in which there is little room for error.” Weiss, 38, is a physician. After medical
school and residency, he spent about five years 8 MAY 2017
with a pediatric practice in the suburbs of Chicago. Te most meaningful part of clinical practice was forging relationships with his pa- tients. His own childhood battles with asthma gave him great empathy as well as insight on how to navigate life. “Asthma, for better or worse, shaped and influenced the entirety of my childhood,” Weiss said. “As I look back, however, asthma did not impact what I wanted to do as much as how I would prepare for any given activity. “Tere was never a practice or competi- tion in which my inhaler did not accompany my gloves, skate guards and water bottle atop the boards,” he added. “When I was 13, my doctors credited skating as saving my life.” He experienced respiratory and cardiac
arrest. When he awoke, doctors credited his strength developed in training as the primary reason he survived and recovered. Asthma is not cured, but it can be managed, and today his asthma is “extraordinarily well controlled.”
While Weiss enjoyed working with pa- tients and their families, he described himself as “wired to think like an engineer and an architect.” Tis led to a desire to explore how physicians can use data, analytics and work- flow redesign to promote safer, higher-quality patient care with better outcomes and lower cost. He transitioned from medical practice — although he does maintain his license and certification in pediatrics — to clinical infor- matics and information technology. He returned to graduate school and
pursued a degree in clinical informatics, the study of information technology and how it can be applied to the healthcare field. Ten he worked with Allscripts, an electronic health record software company. When he got an opportunity to return to a healthcare delivery organization where he could continue to work in informatics and work side by side with clinical providers and patients, he took it. For the past two years Weiss has been the
PHOTO COURTESY OF WEISS FAMILY
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