Dr. Cy Frank Executive Director

Cy brings to ABJHI 25 years of experience and knowledge in the medical practice, research and academic environments.

As Executive Director, he is ABJHI's most senior executive. He advances ABJHI's mission, mandate and goal and sets its priorities. He also ensures ABJHI meets the expectations of its financial contributors and stakeholder organizations.

Cy Serves as Co-Vice Chair of ABJHI's Board of Directors. Please refer to our Board of Directors web page for details of Cy's professional interests and activities.

Stephen Weiss Chief Operating Officer

Stephen leads ABJHI's day-to-day operations, plays an integral role in goal-setting and performance management, oversees all project management activities, and is the senior link with our many stakeholders and partners.

He ensures all ABJHI projects are structured and resourced optimally and delivered in a way that meets our mandate as a catalyst for improving bone and joint health care. He also ensures ABJHI has effective financial controls and meets all regulatory requirements related to our work and to our status as a charitable organization.

Stephen's career in health care spans three decades. He has held senior executive positions in marketing, business development and technology assessment and has experience in strategic business planning, government relations and project management. He has a Ph.D. in pharmacognosy, the study of natural products used as drugs or in making drugs.

Len Cocolicchio Chief, Communications

Len provides strategic communications counsel, services and products to support ABJHI in its important role as a catalyst for improved bone and joint care in Alberta. In doing so, he ensures ABJHI's desired image is articulated in all communications. He also coordinates joint communications with the many stakeholder organizations involved in bone and joint health care.

Len has more than 30 years of experience in communications, the media and politics. He has lived and worked in eastern and western Canada and his communications career has spanned national and regional media relations, speech and news writing, investor-related communications, strategic public affairs, and marketing and employee communications. He has worked in print and broadcast journalism.

Peter Faris Director, Analysis

Peter leads an ABJHI Analysis team whose work is critical for continuously improving bone and joint health care.

The team utilizes data collected across continuums of patient care and compiles this information into Benchmarking reports that are released at regular time intervals. These reports compare results from a provider to benchmarks - or desired levels of performance - in critical areas such as patient outcomes, efficiency, acceptability and appropriateness of care, cost effectiveness, and safety. The reports can identify where performance needs to be addressed and where performance is meeting or exceeding benchmarks. These anonymous and confidential reports are provided to clinicians and administrators.

Peter has consulted as a biostatistician and methodologist on hundreds of research projects across areas of care ranging from cancer and cardiology to musculoskeletal care.

Deborah Marshall Director, Health Technology Assessment and Research

Deborah coordinates the assessment of and research on health technologies to provide evidence that can be used to improve or develop bone and joint health care services.

Her team identifies gaps in evidence for bone and joint health care and undertakes research to fill the gaps. The team's research findings and assessment results provide new evidence that ABJHI's Design and Information-sharing group can use in designing safe, effective and efficient service delivery models.

Deborah also coordinates ABJHI's efforts to share its research findings with the broader medical community through publication in peer-reviewed journals and other credible scientific forums.

In addition to her work with ABJHI, Deborah is the Canada Research Chair of Health Services and Systems Research and Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary.

Deborah has held executive research positions in private industry heading up numerous global health economics projects including prospective studies and cost-effectiveness models for products to treat osteoarthritis, infectious and cardiac disease, and cancer, and for blood screening products. Her research in health technology and health economics, funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the U.S. National Institute of Health, has been widely published in leading journals.

Christopher Smith Project Director and Chief, Information Technology

Chris is Project Director and Chief of Information Technology. His dual roles illustrate ABJHI's ability to use the skills and talents of its people to maximal value.

As Project Director, Chris quarterbacks ABJHI's work on provincial initiatives to advance bone and joint health care services for Albertans. He provides overall project management, identifies strategies for managing change, and supports health care service providers and administrators to implement changes. In addition to providing these services, he assumes responsibility for end-to-end management of all project deliverables.

As Chief of IT, Chris builds and maintains the databases and information technology infrastructure ABJHI needs to support its role as a catalyst for improved bone and joint health care in Alberta. He also provides the IT tools ABJHI needs to successfully complete critical tasks and meet the deliverables in its projects. Chris's IT know how complements his role as Project Director.

Prior to joining ABJHI, Chris was Director of Software Delivery for a Calgary-based IT startup company. He also was a senior consultant for a world-wide provider of IT and business process solutions. His clients included oil and gas companies, utilities, government and health care organizations where he worked on projects ranging from application architecture and development to networking and infrastructure.