Meet the SMI Group Leadership Team
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Meet the SMI Group Leadership Team

Meet the SMI Group Leadership Team

SMI Group brings you experienced, dedicated clinical and business professionals who care about your surgery program. We will craft a winning strategy to successfully implement change for your organization.

The Principals have worked as senior level executives and vice presidents of hospital management consulting firms including Chi Systems, DJ Sullivan & Associates, and Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Systems Inc.; they have combined hands-on experience of over 70 years with the hospital operating room, ASC – ambulatory surgery center, and material management issues that our clients face.

All our SMI Group consultants are seasoned professionals with the perioperative clinical, surgery business, sterile processing, and high-level management experience you need to demonstratively improve your surgery center.

JOHN GIALANELLA, R.N., B.M.E., M.P.H. - SMI Group Founder

JOHN GIALANELLA, Vice President & Founder of the SMI Group
R.N., B.M.E. (Mech Engineering), M.P.H. (Medical Care Organization-OJ/OC)

  • experience in both the manufacturing industry and the health care field;
  • worked as an emergency medical technician in urban New Jersey and later as a staff nurse at Duke University Medical Center;
  • served as a facilities engineer for a division of General Motors Corporation;
  • spent two years as a consultant with Chi Systems in Ann Arbor, Michigan;
  • developed evaluation and space programming methodologies for hospital special care units;
  • planned and designed prototype patient care units for community hospitals and university medical centers;
  • vice president of DJ Sullivan & Associates, directing patient acuity-based nurse staffing projects, medical staff management, and operating room analysis projects for hospitals of various sizes; led the OR Consulting Division upon its initiation.
  • internal consultant at University of Michigan Hospitals in 1987 initially to provide decision support services to the medical center’s executive team;
  • conducted projects establishing a new approach to nursing personnel budgeting, and which led to multimillion-dollar revenue increases in Surgery Department operations;
  • in 1991 he accepted the position of Director of Materiel Services for the UM Hospitals with staff of 300 and annual expense budget of $20 million;
  • revised the medical-surgical product acquisition process at UMMC: negotiating new contracts with all major manufacturers, service agreements with distributors;
  • established supply links with the UMMC’s expanding network of satellite clinics and alternate care sites, coordinated all support services for a 60,000 sq. ft. primary care facility
  • nominated by his staff and awarded “Materiel Manager of the Year” for 1995 by Healthcare Purchasing News;
  • rejoined DJS/a in July 1996 to lead the company’s OR Materiel Management Product Line;
  • with the August 1996 acquisition of DJS/a by Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc. he assumed responsibility for the overall quality of all surgery project engagements and the direct supervision of all consultants;
  • April 1998 became Senior Consulting Executive for Surgery with on client need identification and work plan development;
  • Vice President and Founder of the Surgery Management Improvement Group Inc. in 2002, he continues in this role.
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SUE SMITH, M.H.S.A, B.S.N., CNOR - SMI Group Founder

SUE ELLEN SMITH, Principal and Founder of SMI Group
RN, MHA, BSN, CNOR

  • Masters Degree in Health Services Administration through the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan;
  • Baccalaureate degree in Nursing from the University of Michigan School of Nursing;
  • member of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses;
  • certification in perioperative nursing;
  • served as Chair of Specialty Assembly in Business and Industry;
  • serves on the Ambulatory Surgery and Management Specialty Assemblies;
  • over 30 years of healthcare and surgery program experience;
  • includes 15 years of managing surgical services programs in both acute hospital and ambulatory care settings;
  • expertise is organization design and management development, strategic and facility planning, clinical program design, development and implementation, organization improvement, equipment and supply systems evaluation, policy and procedure development, project management and staff leadership;
  • impactful role during consulting assignments at D.J. Sullivan & Associates and Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc. Consulting and Services Division;
  • led the design and implementation planning of surgical services organization, management and clinical practice, integrating and standardizing programs and processes across a five hospital system;
  • led the design and implementation of a Surgical Patient Safety program and OR Quality Indicator Monitoring System for a large teaching hospital.;
  • organized and implemented team nursing/specialty cluster and management structures to optimize staff development and improve quality of services;
  • chaired a task force through the search, selection and implementation of an OR Information System which provided scheduling, electronic charging, management reporting and perioperative documentation;
  • led a task force to determine the feasibility of and then integrate the surgery scheduling functions with a hospital wide central appointment and preadmission scheduling program;
  • collaborated with the Department of Gynecology to develop and implement one of the first successful Invitro Fertilization programs in the United States;
  • planned, designed, and monitored construction and opening of a six room OR suite and support area addition;
  • developed staffing patterns for the operating room based on data identifying peak volume times to assure staff availability to meet caseload demand.
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