Sean J. Moynihan receives University of Virginia
Outstanding Contribution Award
Since he joined the Department of Radiology in 2000, as PACS administrator, Sean Moynihan has consistently contributed above and beyond what was expected of him. As the Information Technologies director, he continues to works long hours and signs up for call duties equal to his employees, showing committed leadership to his employees who serve "in the trenches" with him.
Sean designed and implemented the hospital's first successful Picture Archiving and Communcations System (PACS - an enterprise wide information system that distributes radiology images to radiologists, clinicians and referring physicians alike). These are extensive installations with as many failure stories as successes at other institutions. The system design is primarily of Sean's making, and is considered by many to be leading edge (sometimes referred to as the bleeding edge) in the way it has incorporated multiple redundancies. This redundancy proved to be one of the critical success factors in PACS usefulness and acceptance to the institution's clinicians and has stood the test of time. Our uptime is always greater than 99%.
To give an example of the resiliency of our Information Systems, we were the designated hospital in a year when a hurricane blew through our area. Although many of the hospital's critical systems were sufficiently damaged to make them unavailable, our PACS remained up and running allowing us to continue to provide urgent imaging for patients receiving care at UVa.
Today Sean continues to develop novel approaches to solving patient care issues by using technology effectively. Realizing that the PACS was serving radiology well, he felt it could be "tweaked" to allow for other specialties that use imaging, to take advantage of the existing PACS infrastructure. On his own initiative he began exploring avenues to expand the service throughout the Medical Center. To this point, he has already added gastroenterology and radiation oncology to PACS and is in the process of adding cardiology soon to be followed by dermatology and pathology. Sean's forward thinking, innovativeness and broad vision, has strengthened both the department and the health system.
Within the department, Sean maintains excellent working relationships with the other managers and physicians with his ultimate goal to provide exemplary patient care through leveraging information systems to accomplish these goals.
Karen Rheuban, MD, Director of Telemedicine and a Professor of Pediatric Cardiology sums it up:
"Sean's innovative and service oriented demeanor has helped us fulfill our missions of clinical care, research, and public service. From the perspective of service, any time one of my patients has required teleradiology services to transfer images to another facility; Sean has provided expert, timely and spectacular service.
Regarding research and service, when the telemedicine program is offered opportunities to increase our portfolio of services, we always turn to Sean for his vision and talent to integrate teleradiology and PACS technologies into our proposals. He has never failed to offer state of the art and innovative solutions for our many outreach projects. Without that expertise I earnestly believe we would not have been as successful in our many statewide collaborations and grant proposals.
Regarding enhancing the University's image and/ or improved service: Sean provides a unique skill set in assisting us as we strategize opportunities and as an innovative champion for our programs. This collaboration has allowed us to greatly enhance our outreach to patients in underserved areas of the Commonwealth in addition to sophisticated health care systems.
His infectiously cheerful and collaborative attitude has greatly influenced our willingness to expand our outreach programs, knowing that technology solutions will not be a barrier to achieving our goals."
We all join in congratulating Mr. Moynihan on this much deserved honor.