Dr. Andrew Rose Watson is a native of Pittsburgh. He is a fourth generation surgeon and the seventh in his family. He attended Trinity College and subsequently received his Masters degree at the University of Oxford. His thesis studied 17th Century English baroque architecture. He attended medical school at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and was elected class president all four years. He returned to UPMC for his surgical training and completed a minimally invasive surgical fellowship. He is an actively practicing surgeon in the division of colorectal surgery and specializes in minimally invasive colorectal and inflammatory bowel disease surgery.
Dr. Watson spent two years working with the American Board of Surgery and the Department of Surgery at UPMC developing a national platform and curriculum for surgical education. He served as an associate-residency program director for three years and has received numerous teaching awards.
Dr. Watson focuses the majority time on corporate health care at UPMC, a $9.5B integrated global delivery network in Pittsburgh. He is a Vice President of the International and Commercial Service Division. He helps to lead industrial relations for UPMC and plays a key role integrating health care information technology into clinical practice. He joined IT management of UPMC in 2010. He practices 30% of his clinical care using telemedicine and plays a lead role in establishing telemedicine for UPMC at an enterprise level. He led a 14-month program to develop an enterprise business plan and also a one-year process to submit a $38m broadband technology opportunity grant as part of the 2009 stimulus funding. He is the Executive Director for Business Development and Technology for Telemedicine.
He is the Medical Director of the Center for Connected Medicine, a thought leadership center showcasing the future of health care and health care information technology strategies. This is an executive briefing center located in UPMC’s executive headquarters in Pittsburgh that is a joint venture between founding partners UPMC, IBM, GE, ALU and Verizon and eight strategic partners representing global leaders in health care. Dr. Watson has hosted over 600 tours for over 8,000 people from around the world discussing the transformation of health care and the creation of a connected medicine strategy.
Dr. Watson continues to speak at a global level about telemedicine, mobility, and the impact of connected medicine in transforming health care.
