Connectance, Inc., Innovative Medical Diagnostic Software, About Us

Management:

Nabil W. Moukheibir, M.D. - Chief Executive Officer
Rick Beberman - Chief Operating Officer

Board of Advisors:

Bernhard Klebe, MBChB, MRCP
Klemens Meyer, M.D.
Warner V. Slack, M.D.
Wade Smith, M.D., Ph.D

CONNECTANCE was conceived and developed in the late 1990s by Dr. Nabil Moukheibir, a nephrologist with significant expertise in hypertensive disease and its impact on kidney function. Since his days as a resident at the American University of Beirut and the University of Iowa, Dr. Moukheibir has also had a keen interest in cognitive and computer sciences. After founding a private dialysis center and two acute hemodialysis units at hospitals in Tennessee, Dr. Moukheibir devoted his efforts to furthering medical education through computer science. Dr. Moukheibir was inspired by the number of consultations he was giving primary care physicians for help in diagnosing kidney-related ailments. The calls were many times a little too late. Consultations can be a costly and time consuming process for patients, medical insurance companies, and doctors; and HMOs tend to discourage general practitioners from consulting with specialists.

Management

	Nabil W. Moukheibir, M.D. - Chief Executive Officer Dr. Moukheibir received his medical degree in 1957, at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. In 1967, he completed a three year fellowship in clinical and research nephrology at the University of Iowa. For ten years, he taught nephrology at the American University of Beirut School of Medicine. In 1980, Dr. Moukheibir founded the Kingsport Dialysis Center, in Kingsport, Tennessee, as a private enterprise for treating end-stage renal disease patients. In 1988, he sold his company to Vivra, Inc. the second largest provider of dialysis services in the U.S. He also introduced acute hemodialysis units at Kingsport's two major hospitals: Columbia / HCA and Wellmont Valley. He kept a private practice in nephrology for sixteen years through June 1993. In addition to medical informatics, Dr. Moukheibir's other interests are in cognitive sciences, linguistics, and the visual arts. In 1950 he became aware of Norbert Wiener’s studies through his seminal book on Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. These ideas played an important role in the scientific evolution of Dr. Moukheibir: how to create a system that would render a medical text reactive to the user and capable of participating in the output of a high quality clinical care. Since his residency days, he has been involved in the creation of a computerized method of medical education. Combining these interests, he launched Connectance to focus on developing diagnostic decision support software.

	Rick Beberman - Chief Operating Officer Mr. Beberman has an extensive investment banking and accounting background. He has had leadership responsibility for transactions involving mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, and capital-raising. The total value of these transactions exceeds $10 billion and involves companies in a variety of industries including high-tech, medical products, telecommunications, financial services, transportation, general industrial, and consumer products. Mr. Beberman spent twelve years at the North American affiliate of NM Rothschild & Sons where he provided financial advice to US and European-based companies. He also launched and managed a newly established corporate transaction development effort at Banc of America Securities where he assisted the firm's merger and acquisition clients with corporate development, strategic analysis, and planning. Mr. Beberman joined Connectance in 2004. Mr. Beberman has an MBA from New York University and a Masters degree in Accounting from the University of Southern California.

Board of Advisors

Bernhard Klebe, MBChB, MRCP

Dr. Klebe is currently in the process of a postgraduate MD degree at the University of Canterbury, Kent, UK focusing on the development of clinical decision support in the management of chronic kidney disease (CKD) by non-nephrologists. Dr Klebe graduated from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, in 1995. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London, UK in 1999. He has since embarked upon a career in Nephrology. His main interest is that of CKD, the treatment thereof and strategies related to reduction of its progression. Dr Klebe’s other interests are health informatics and artificial intelligence in medicine.

Klemens Meyer, M.D.

Dr. Meyer is the director of Dialysis Services and Chair of the Health Information Committee at Tufts-New England Medical Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Meyer is Medical Director of Information Systems at Dialysis Clinic, Inc. based in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College, and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Meyer was Chief Resident in Medicine, Fellow in Clinical Decision Making, and Clinical Fellow in Nephrology at Tufts-New England Medical Center. His research interests include the application of informatics and decision support to clinical care, the improvement of health care delivery in chronic kidney disease, and the formal assessment of patient experience and utility.

Warner V. Slack, M.D.

Dr. Slack is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and, with Dr. Howard L. Bleich, Co-Chief of the Division of Clinical Computing, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Co-President of the Center for Clinical Computing. He received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University, his medical degree from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and his residency training in neurology at the University of Wisconsin. Over the past 45 years he has focused his research on the use of computers to improve communication in medicine and to empower both doctors and patients for better health care.

Wade Smith, M.D., Ph.D

Dr. Smith is Professor of Neurology and the Daryl R. Gress Endowed Chair of Neurocritical Care and Stroke at the University of California at San Francisco. He is an avid teacher of neurology and neuroscience to all levels of medical education and is a founding member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators. He actively sees patients with stroke and other vascular disorders of the brain and directs the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at UC Medical Center. His research focuses on techniques to restore blood flow to the brain during stroke, and on the study of rapid imaging of the brain using computed tomography to help decide how best to treat individual patients with stroke.