Leadership

Curtis Watkins is President and Chief Executive Officer of CereCore. In this role he is responsible for the strategic implementation and support of information technology services, applications and processes for CereCore’s clients. Before serving as president and CEO, he held the position of vice president and chief strategy officer for CereCore. Curtis has more than 20 years of IT experience, including IT strategic consulting, systems strategy development and leadership.

Prior to joining CereCore, Curtis served as the corporate vice president and deputy chief information officer (CIO) for Community Health Systems (CHS). Responsible for hospital clinical systems strategy and product development, he also led the organization’s enterprise architecture and meaningful use program. Earlier in his career, he served as CIO for St. David’s Health System, as well as a program director with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), successfully leading one of the largest IT realignments in the company’s history.

With an extensive track record of IT leadership, Curtis has refined the development of IT organizational support structures, in addition to complex system implementations and integrations. Curtis serves on the board of directors of the Nashville Technology Council and is an avid supporter of the United Way. He earned his MBA from the University of Massachusetts and a bachelor’s degree from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

Brigham Freeze is Chief Financial Officer of CereCore. In this role, he manages all aspects of financial planning, budgeting, accounting, billing and reporting as well as providing oversight of CereCore’s contracts management team.

A Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Brigham has more than 20 years of experience in financial and accounting management roles. Prior to joining CereCore, Brigham was employed with HealthSpring/Cigna and Iasis Healthcare. Brigham also spent 7 years with Ernst & Young’s Audit and Advisory Services group where he served a number of publicly-held healthcare companies in the Nashville area. Brigham is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and recently completed an eight-year term as treasurer for his church.

Dr. Charles Bell is the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of CereCore. In this role, Dr. Bell provides physician leadership in the development and implementation of information technology to support care delivery and data capture with particular emphasis on clinical information systems and electronic health records (EHR) in hospital and ambulatory care environments.

Prior to joining CereCore, Dr. Bell served as vice president of Advanced Clinical Applications for Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). In that role, he served as corporate physician champion for MEDITECH 6.x and Epic projects and as corporate physician lead for HCA’s Cerner facility. Earlier, Dr. Bell was chief medical information officer at Northern Arizona Healthcare and a physician informaticist at Catholic Healthcare West (now Dignity Health).

Dr. Bell holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Rider University, a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Temple University School of Pharmacy and a doctorate from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He completed his residency in general internal medicine at Phoenix General Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.

Joel St. Francis nurtures client relationships, enhances organizational effectiveness and operational practices and develops growth strategy for Managed Services at CereCore. Joel brings more than 15 years of client and account management expertise and delivering solutions for complex clients’ needs to his role. Prior to his AVP role, Joel served as a client executive for Parallon managing a portfolio of solutions to achieve client revenue and profitability targets while expanding the CereCore business portfolio. Joel earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Worcester State University. He is a certified project management professional and holds a Six Sigma Green Belt certification.

Phil Sobol oversees all sales and marketing initiatives and works with the sales team, delivery organizations and strategic business partners to support our clients’ strategic direction. He has more than 20 years of experience working with organizations to align their business objectives with appropriate enterprise technology solutions. Prior to CereCore, Phil was general manager and vice president of Sales & Marketing for several enterprise resource planning (ERP) consulting companies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Taylor University.

Craig McCollum is responsible for implementation services and project delivery for the MEDITECH Practice at CereCore. Prior to CereCore, he held the position of MEDITECH practice director for Vision Consulting. Craig has more than 20 years of healthcare IT and finance experience, including practice leadership, business development, EHR project leadership, EHR implementation and financial management.

Craig previously served as MEDITECH practice manager for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), where he was responsible for project management of large health system MEDITECH revenue cycle implementation and multiple MEDITECH related consulting engagements. Craig also served as financial applications director at Cook Children’s Health Care System in Fort Worth, Texas and managed MEDITECH revenue cycle/financial implementation across system.

Craig is a member of Medical Users Software Exchange (MUSE) and Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Craig is MEDITECH READY certified in project management, general financials, supply chain management and human resources planning. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Fresno State University.

Josh Dunaway leads development and delivery of solutions and services by a talented team of experienced technology consultants for Technical Services at CereCore. He has more than 15 years of healthcare IT experience. Prior to CereCore, he served as the director of a technical consulting practice leading the successful delivery of integration programs for a large hospital system helping them to achieve goals in areas of EHR conversions, ambulatory and meaningful use in over 80 hospitals. Josh’s healthcare IT foundation was cemented through nearly 10 years serving the IT department of a large hospital system leading clinical application, technology implementation and operation.

Justin Diehl leads the development and expansion of the new Epic Practice service line at CereCore. Justin has over 15 years of IS related experience that was mostly focused on Epic. Prior to CereCore, he served as Application Success Owner for Epic Systems and President of Healthware Partners (his own consulting entity). While at Healthware Partners, Justin served in various roles such as Epic Program Director for a 52-hospital system and Director of Core Healthcare Applications for a large academic healthcare system. Justin holds his PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from PMI (Project Management Institute) and completed his MBA with a focus in Innovation Management.

Jessica Thomas is responsible for recruiting and managing top IT clinical and technical contract labor talent to support HCA Healthcare’s application and infrastructure portfolio for Staffing Services at CereCore. Additionally, Jessica has direct responsibility for providing MEDITECH project and implementation services to HCA Healthcare.

Jessica has served HCA Healthcare since 2000 and has held various leadership roles across their Information Technology organization including Business Continuity, Information Security, Product Development, Infrastructure Management, Project Portfolio Development and Customer Support Services. Jessica is a 2016 graduate of HCA Healthcare’s Emerging Leader program and she earned her MBA in Information Technology from Western Governors University in November 2015. Jessica currently serves as a board member for the Heimerdinger Foundation and she teaches Servant Leadership classes at HCA Healthcare and for Belmont University.