David Yakimischak

David Yakimischak (“Yak”) is currently Senior Vice President, Information Systems at Surescripts, the national e-prescribing network. He has been working in the field of information technology and healthcare for over 30 years.

After studying Computer Science at the University of Toronto, Yak started his career in Toronto, working at Merrill Lynch and then Dow Jones Telerate, where he took on roles in IT and product management. In 1992 he relocated to the United States where he worked on the team bringing content like the Wall Street Journal to the Internet.

In 1999, he became Chief Technology Officer of MedicaLogic Medscape, and was part of the senior management team that successfully IPO’d the company. After selling the MedicaLogic assets to General Electric (to become Centricity) and the Medscape assets to WebMD, Yak joined Surescripts in 2006 as its first Chief Technology Officer. He helped build the Surescripts network and get the company ready for the onslaught of transactions that were coming. From 100,000 prescriptions per month, the system he built now handles over 8 million prescriptions per day. He was also responsible for Product Management, Customer Support, Implementation and Certification, Technical Operations and Information Security.

After the merger with RxHub in 2008, Yak became Chief Quality Officer and took on the responsibility of defining and running its clinical quality program. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, he built an industry leading quality management system, ensuring that electronic prescription quality, accuracy and safety are measured, managed and continuously improved. He instituted the first EMR quality recognition program called the Surescripts White Coat of Quality. This annual award is given to EMR vendors who deliver measurable improvements in the quality of their e-prescribing systems. Over 100 EMR organizations and installations have applied for and received their White Coats.

Yak served as a subject matter expert acknowledged in the 2012 IOM publication Health IT and Patient Safety. He is the inventor on two U.S. patent applications on the topic of quality control of electronic prescriptions. He was also a member of the 2011 HIT Steering Committee (Power Team) on Electronic Prescribing of Discharge Medications. He is currently studying for his MBA at Johns Hopkins University, and mentors graduate students at Columbia University in New York.