Wouter Rietsema Md Email Address

Chief Information Officer

The University of Vermont Health Network - Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital is a private, not-for profit hospital and a subsidiary of Community Providers Inc., (CPI). Established in 1967 with the merger of Champlain Valley and Physicians hospitals, CVPH joined Fletcher Allen Partners in 2012, which in 2014, became The University of Vermont Health Network. Together with its partners, the University of Vermont Medical Center, Central Vermont Medical Center and Elizabethtown Community Hospital, CVPH provides high quality, cost effective care, close to home. Services include an award winning cardiac services program, accredited cancer center, freestanding ambulatory surgery center, comprehensive rehabilitation services and a 24 hour physician-staffed Emergency Care Center. Governed by a 15-member Board of Directors, CVPH is accredited by the Joint Commission and licensed by New York State and Medicare/Medicaid approved.

A native of Avon, Connecticut, Wouter J. Rietsema, MD received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish from Middlebury College, Vermont in 1980 and his Medical Degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1985. After an internship at the San Diego Naval Hospital in California, he went on to serve four years of active duty at the Naval Hospital in Groton, Connecticut as a Submarine and Diving Medical Officer. Dr. Rietsema left active duty in 1990 to complete his postgraduate training in Portland, Oregon, where he completed his Internal Medicine residency at Good Samaritan Hospital and then his Infectious Disease fellowship at the Oregon Health Sciences University. In 1994, Wouter returned to the northeastern United States as the first Infectious Disease physician at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Medical Center (CVPH), a 300-bed community hospital in Plattsburgh, New York. Dr. Rietsema became the Medical Director at CVPH in 1998 and, from 2002-2011 was the Vice President of Medical Affairs while maintaining a small outpatient HIV and infectious disease clinic. In 2011 he transitioned to a newly created role of Chief Quality and Information Officer for CVPH, recognizing the interdependence of quality and information technology in healthcare. He is currently enrolled in classwork for a graduate Certificate in Health Informatics at the Oregon Health Sciences University. Wouter believes that information technology can be transformative for clinicians and for patients and is critical to improve the health of populations. He also believes that we are only in the earliest stages of understanding how it will all work, with real hurdles to overcome in the way information is exchanged, and more importantly, in how clinicians will deal with the vast universe of data that is exchanged, extracting critical information without becoming overwhelmed in the data.