60: Jorge Scheirer

Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer

Jorge J. Scheirer, MD is the Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer at St. Luke's University Health Network. He focuses on optimizing Epic Ambulatory and supporting the work of physicians. He is also a practicing internal medicine doctor at St. Luke's Primary Care in Hamburg. He is a practicing physician for 29 years. In his informatics position, he is responsible for delivering electronic medical records to physicians and also for helping develop and curate content that helps physicians care for patients. He did work throughout the pandemic and estimates that he knew approximately 200 people with covid.

One change during the pandemic was conducting telemedicine video visits. He explained that at one point he started to do covid testing in the parking lot. He explained that it was necessary to find ways to care for our patients and simultaneously protect the other patients and the staff. His staff was featured in a Microsoft TEAMS commercial featured for the work they did using TEAM video visits. 

Sadly, Dr. Scheirer lost his mother who contracted covid while she was a resident in Berks Heim. This loss has increased his passion for explaining to others how critical vaccines are and how important PPE and precautions are. He emphasizes that we all have a personal responsibility to protect others by wearing masks and following appropriate precautions. In essence, we are protecting one another by doing the right thing.

This pandemic has reinforced his belief to live each day fully and spend time with loved ones. He especially values regular family dinners and gatherings. He is keenly aware of the gift of excellent health care we have. His hope for the future is that we take this experience and invest all we can in preventing the next pandemic.