Jim Rush

James M. Rush, CHPM, is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of JVR Health Readiness Inc. (formerly MEDLOG Inc.). JVR Health Readiness is a woman-owned/ Veteran-owned Healthcare consulting and services organization dedicated to Health and Medical Readiness. Mr. Rush has over twenty-six years of Healthcare Materials Management and leadership experience with healthcare and public health organizations in both the Public and Private Sectors. He was Middle East Regional Materials Manager with the U.S. Air Force and later served as the Medical War Reserves (stockpile) Manager on the Surgeon General, Europe’s staff in Germany. He later served the Army as a civilian employee and the Chief of Medical Material Requirements for the Readiness division of the U.S Army Medical Material Center, Europe (USAMMCE). Most recently, Mr. Rush was the Region III Project Officer with the National Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program. As a Health Resources and Services Administration Project Officer, he provided technical assistance to HRSA awardees in developing a truly integrated approach to planning, training and testing their effectiveness for managing the full spectrum of man-made and naturally occurring disasters. In the Private Healthcare Industry, Mr. Rush has held positions as the Materials Manager at the Children’s Hospital and Center for Reconstructive Surgery in Baltimore, Maryland and at Barrow Medical Center in Winder Georgia and as the Director of Purchasing at Garrett County Memorial Hospital, in Oakland Maryland. He has broad experience with Governmental acquisition systems, as well as major civilian healthcare Group Purchasing Organizations (GPO). He specializes in aggressive Materials Management initiatives and the development of “Corporate Materials Management” standardization programs. He also uses his extensive experience in managing very large wartime and disaster related medical materials management systems to assist customers in developing disaster or bioterrorism materials management programs. Mr. Rush was the first Logistics Manager for the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In that capacity he developed storage and stock rotation plans to effectively and efficiently manage over $300 million in pharmaceuticals, emergency equipment, vaccines, blood products and other lifesaving commodities. His professional papers have been published in the International Association of Emergency Managers newsletter, with worldwide circulation. Excerpts of his article “Preparing for Bioterrorism” have been published by the Materials Management magazine, a joint publication of the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Association of Healthcare Resources and Materials Management (AHRMM). In December, 2005, Mr. Rush served the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a subject matter expert on a focus group for an upcoming FEMA healthcare course. This course will help leaders develop comprehensive healthcare emergency management programs to manage future disasters. This course will also highlight recent lessons learned in disasters where healthcare organizations could no longer sustain patient care and had to evacuate the facility. The course will also present topics designed to help mediate or eliminate healthcare operational vulnerabilities in future disasters.