Dynamic technology leader Bernard Chien increases breakthrough capability

NEW YORK (Oct. 16, 2018) — Acertitude, the executive search firm unleashing human potential globally, has recruited Bernard Chien as chief technology officer of Cota Healthcare, a real-world data and analytics company. Effective today, the addition of Chien expands the company’s capability to deliver enabling treatment insights that improve patient outcomes and reduce the total cost of care. He joins Cota from Best Doctors, where he was also the chief technology officer.

“We are thrilled to have Bernard join our mission to enable delivery of the best possible patient outcomes, and reduce the total costs of care for populations,” said Andrew Pecora M.D., founder and executive chairman of the health technology company. “He is a very capable technology leader — strategic, innovative, and truly knows the healthcare SaaS space.”

As CTO, Chien will leverage the patented Cota Nodal Address™ (CNA) system, a unique digital classification methodology built by oncologists and data scientists. Cota’s breakthrough CNA system is the first and only system that precisely categorizes patient factors and intended therapies to enable precision medicine at scale. Chien’s new role includes responsibility for expanding Cota’s technology vision and development roadmap, product strategy, and leading the engineering and product teams.

“Cota is revealing breakthrough insights in oncology and healthcare in general,” said Andrew Norden, M.D., chief medical officer. “Our leadership team saw in Bernard the leadership and expertise needed to continue driving our platform into the future. We are thrilled that he is joining us.”

Chien is a dynamic technology leader with more than 20 years of experience. He spent the past eight years running technology teams in the healthcare industry. Prior to Best Doctors, he previously served as CTO of Applause, MedVentive, and Radisphere. He spent his earlier years in architect and software engineering roles at athenahealth, Intralinks, and Sapient. He earned a Bachelor of Science, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I am honored to join an organization with such a powerful mission and a truly breakthrough system for medical data extraction and analysis,” said Chien. “I look forward to working with Cota’s talented team to forge additional breakthroughs that will give providers and health systems the tools they need to make better treatment decisions, and to offer life sciences companies research grade data resources to support treatment discovery and testing.”

Acertitude served as an advisor to the Cota leadership team by shaping the role and recruiting Chien in 107 days. Nate DaPore, Acertitude managing director and healthcare practice leader, led the search with support from partner Vicki Devlin and research team.

“We are honored to partner with the pioneer in oncology health technology,” DaPore said. “The combination of Bernard’s expertise and passion for the mission made him stand out as the best qualified candidate to expand Cota’s breakthrough capabilities.”

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