Management
Neil A. Martin, MD – Founder, Chief Medical Officer
As founder of GCQ and professor and chief, Division of Neurosurgery at the David Geffin School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Martin brings more than 25 years of practicing neurosurgical and intensive care medicine experience to the company. Dr. Martin has had extensive experience in assisting in the evaluation and development of various clinical information systems for third party vendors and at UCLA, especially in the areas of ICU physician workflow, electronic mobile bedside charting systems, electronic operating room, robotic telemedicine, graphical user interface design concepts and knowledge base engines. Dr. Martin is widely considered as one of the leading pioneers in the adoption of clinical IT technology in the ICU and the operating room, and has been instrumental in driving the adoption of electronic bedside charting systems at UCLA School of Medicine.
Dr. Martin received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1973 and his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia in 1978. He completed his residency at the University of California, San Francisco in 1984, and a clinical and research fellowship in neurovascular surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, Arizona, in 1985.
Valeriy I. Nenov, PhD, PhD, Dipl. Ing – Founder, VP Advanced R&D
Dr. Nenov is a Professor in the Division of Neurosurgery at the David Geffin School of Medicine at UCLA. As a Director of the Brain Monitoring and Modeling Laboratory for the past 12 years, Dr. Nenov has been a leading investigator in several NIH-funded projects, including the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center (BIRC) and the Specialized Program of Transitional Research in Acute Stroke (SPOTRIAS). He is co-author of numerous research papers and scientific conference presentations, and a holder of five U.S. patents.
Dr. Nenov received an engineering degree in micro electronics from the Czech Polytechnic University in Prague and two doctorate degrees in neuroscience and computer science from UCLA.
Farzad Buxey – Founder, Chief Technical Officer
Farzad Buxey is a systems architect/research specialist for the IT Division of Neurosurgery at the David Geffin School of Medicine at UCLA. He jointly runs the IT operations for neurosurgery and the Brain Monitoring and Modeling Lab at UCLA. Mr. Buxey has been the chief systems architect for numerous multi-center, multi-site, NIH-funded clinical trials, including the Brain Injury Research Center (BIRC), Specialized Program of Transitional Research in Acute Stroke (SPOTRIAS) and Hypopituitarism After Moderate and Severe Head Injury. With his 8+ years of experience in building various systems used at UCLA and for third party vendors, he brings a rich experience in scalable systems and database architecture, connecting to various disparate sources of data, in a secure manner, management of user requirements, GUI design concepts and mobility of information. Before coming to UCLA he worked with Datapro Services, India, creating and deploying the first X.400 based e-mail system.
Mr. Buxey received his master’s in computer sciences from California State University, Fresno and his undergraduate in computer engineering from Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Pune, India.
Alan Portela – Executive Vice President, Client Services
Mr. Portela brings more than 20 years of health care IT sales and marketing experience to GCQ. Mr. Potela served as a vice president of strategic initiatives for Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS). During his tenure, he was responsible for establishing partnerships with prestigious medical centers such as Albert Einstein Medical Center, and St. John’s Episcopal. Prior to PCTS, Mr. Portela served as senior vice president of client relations for CliniComp International Inc., where he was responsible for sales and marketing, account management/implementation services and special projects. As the head of client relations, Mr. Portela was responsible for the support of approximately 35 hospital-wide installations, representing 10,000 beds worldwide. As vice president of sales and marketing, Mr. Portela was directly responsible for the selection of CliniComp by the Department of Defense as the sole provider of its inpatient clinical modules to military medical facilities. Prior to joining CliniComp, Mr. Portela was vice president of sales and marketing for Systran Systems Inc., a San Diego based provider of computerized natural language software.
Mr. Portela received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from UADE, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and is a frequent and accomplished speaker on health care automation and electronic medical record trends. Currently, Mr. Portela is a MBA course lecturer at the University of California at Irvine Graduate School of Management.