Thomas J. Quatroche Jr., PhD named President and Chief Executive Officer of the Healthcare Association of New York State

BUFFALO, NY— Erie County Medical Center Corporation (ECMC) today announced that CEO Thomas J. Quatroche Jr., PhD will leave the institution in June to lead the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS), New York’s statewide hospital and continuing care association, representing approximately 500 nonprofit and public hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies and other healthcare organizations serving 20 million New Yorkers in every community across the state. Dr. Quatroche will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of HANYS.

Dr. Quatroche began his career at ECMC in 2004, serving as senior vice president of marketing, planning and business development from 2004-2015. In 2015, he was appointed President of ECMC where he was responsible for all Surgical Services, Orthopaedics, Oncology, Head & Neck/Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Bariatrics, and Oral Oncology Maxillofacial Prosthetics, as well as marketing, strategic planning and the development of new business. In 2016, he was named President and CEO of ECMC. During his tenure as President and CEO, Dr. Quatroche oversaw several significant initiatives at ECMC, including the planning, development and opening in 2020 of ECMC’s $55 million KeyBank Trauma and Emergency Center, which was ECMC’s first-ever public capital campaign that raised $15 million of the new facility’s project cost.

Dr. Quatroche said, “It has been an honor and a privilege to serve for so many years alongside the most talented, dedicated and compassionate caregivers, helping to maintain and fulfill the remarkable legacy ECMC has created for over 100 years on our Grider Street health campus. Together, our focus and commitment has always been providing high-quality healthcare services to our patients, no matter their condition or circumstance. The evolution of ECMC over the past two decades has been significantly positive and the members of our ECMC Family have distinguished themselves time and again with many nationally recognized clinical achievements and accomplishments. As is the case throughout the healthcare industry in our nation and abroad, many challenges have occurred over the years – most significantly the COVID-19 pandemic – and there will continue to be challenges going forward, but the resilience and commitment our ECMC caregivers demonstrated unfailingly throughout the pandemic will continue to fortify their efforts on behalf of their patients for years to come. While I am saddened to leave an institution I love so completely and have devoted so much of my energy to for twenty-two years, I look forward to the new opportunity of working on behalf of healthcare institutions across New York State and utilize the experience and knowledge I have gained at ECMC to help them fulfill their commitments and missions to their patients and their respective communities”

Eugenio Russi, Chair of the ECMC Board of Directors said, “Tom Quatroche has led ECMC with unflagging dedication and commitment. His focus throughout his career at ECMC has always been the delivery of reliable, high-quality care to our patients and his resolute, unwavering support of our caregivers – at every level. Tom leaves an overwhelmingly positive imprint on ECMC that will continue for years to come. On behalf of my fellow Board members, thank you Tom for your significant contributions to ECMC and we wish you many years of continued success and good fortune.”

During Dr. Quatroche’s tenure, ECMC received a combined $452.9 million in state and federal funding that supported a variety of capital projects including the new KeyBank Trauma and Emergency Center, the development and implementation of a new state-of-the-art electronic medical record system (EPIC), which has been coordinated in collaboration with the University at Buffalo and Kaleida Health to implement a community-wide shared electronic medical record system, the planning for a new Community Healthcare Pavilion and Learning Center on ECMC’s Grider Street health campus that will bring together primary care, outpatient care, and diagnostic care in a patient-centered community environment in addition to new clinical learning and care simulation space.

In 2016, Dr. Quatroche played a pivotal role in successfully adding an amendment to a 2003 state law that had created the Erie County Medical Center Corporation as a standalone state public benefit corporation. Passed in the State Legislature and signed by the Governor, the amended state legislation permitted ECMC to enter into agreements for the creation and operation of an integrated healthcare delivery services in collaboration with Kaleida Health and the University at Buffalo, including: coordination and integration of clinical services to reduce redundancy and increase efficiency; joint management of graduate medical education and academic affiliations; joint purchasing of services, supplies and equipment; and joint marketing of health care services. That outcome has contributed significantly to Buffalo’s stature as a world-class destination for the best in patient care, clinical research, and medical education.

He led the development and implementation of several significant clinical initiatives, which resulted in either the opening or expansion of the following:

• Center for Cancer Care
• Regional Center of Excellence for Transplantation and Kidney Care
• Regional Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health
• Center of Excellence for Orthopedic Care
• Regional Burn Treatment Center in WNY
• Breast Health Center

With Dr. Quatroche’s leadership, ECMC has developed and implemented some of the most innovative and diverse Behavioral Health services in New York State and beyond. ECMC’s Regional Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health provides mental health, psychiatric, and substance use treatment services. Our team of compassionate specialists provide care on both an inpatient and outpatient basis to best serve the needs of our community and patients. In addition to being one of the largest substance use treatment centers in Western New York, ECMC is the only Buffalo-area hospital that offers a psychiatrist in the emergency room and substance use evaluations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (approximately 18,000 of the 63,000 patients cared for last year in ECMC’s Emergency Department presented with a Behavioral Health condition). Other unique services include the Intensive Outpatient Program, a structured treatment opportunity that engages participants three days per week over four weeks. It serves as a step-down program for those individuals in need following completion of our Partial Hospital Program (PHP) or can be a treatment option to help prevent inpatient hospitalization. This program offers more intensive transitional services than traditional outpatient therapy, which includes both group and individual services as well as medication management. And ECMC’s Help Center provides urgent care service for walk-in mental health treatment of adults in crisis who do not require psychiatric emergency treatment or inpatient care.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Quatroche worked collaboratively with the ECMC Foundation to develop programs and initiatives that support the institution in general and specifically efforts such as the Nursing Education and Professional Development Fund that since 2020 through 2025, has supported 319 nursing scholarships and 163 nursing certifications. And with Dr. Quatroche’s support, 2025 marked the second year of ECMC’s Healthcare Explorers program, which is an immersive Summer Healthcare Internship for high school students from throughout Western New York that provides them with hands-on learning opportunities, while exploring multiple healthcare specialties & disciplines. This program, which has engaged more than 240 students from 50+ schools in the region, offers high school students a unique, immersive summer experience to explore diverse health care careers and helps students discover the full spectrum of healthcare professions while enhancing their resumes and building valuable networks.

Further to those successful programs done in collaboration with the ECMC Foundation, Dr. Quatroche is gratified with the ECMC Family’s generosity in 2025, where they again exceeded 50% participation in charitable giving to the institution’s Annual Giving Campaign. With $445,356 in total support in 2025, the Foundation reinvests those proceeds back into the care staff deliver through a variety of programs that support professional development for staff, equipment and technology to enhance our high-quality healthcare services and other initiatives to ensure they have all of the support and resources they need to provide lifesaving care to our patients.

Other notable developments and accomplishments that have occurred under Dr. Quatroche’s leadership include:

• Achieving zero agency nurses employed at ECMC.
• Medical Intensive Care Units (MICU) North and South were each recognized by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) with a gold-level Beacon Award for Excellence.  With this accomplishment, ECMC is 1 of 2 Level 1 Trauma Centers in New York State with more than 1 Gold Beacon Unit, 1 of 7 hospitals in the state with more than one Gold Beacon unit, and one of two hospitals in Western New York with more than one Gold Beacon unit.
• Forbes Top Hospital 2026 list – ECMC again receives national third-party recognition for delivering high-quality healthcare services to the residents of Western New York.
• ECMC’s Terrace View Long-Term Care facility on Newsweek’s Best Nursing Homes 2026 list. Only four percent of nursing homes nationwide received this distinction.  Of the 600 skilled nursing facilities statewide that operate, 69 received this recognition. This is the sixth consecutive year Terrace View has received this recognition.
• ECMC is the first hospital in Western New York to install Medical Microinstruments, Inc.’s Symani® Surgical System, a first-of-its-kind robotic technology that uniquely addresses the scale and complexities of microsurgery. Surgeons at ECMC are now able to use microsurgical techniques with robotic precision to perform reconstruction of small blood and lymphatic vessels to help restore quality of life for more patients.  The Symani® Surgical System is the sixth robotic surgical system now available at ECMC.
• ECMC again recognized by the Lown Institute among the best nationally and in New York State, receiving ‘A’ grades on the 2024-2025 Lown Institute Hospitals Index across five metrics, including: health equity, community benefit, inclusivity, value of care, and avoiding overuse.  The Lown Hospitals Index is the only national ranking to provide a holistic evaluation of hospital performance across health equity, value, and outcomes.  

Recent accreditations achieved under Dr. Quatroche include:

• Joint Commission granted ECMC three-year Comprehensive Accreditation.

• ECMC reverified as a Level 1Trauma Center by the Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons (ACS).

• Joint Commission also granted ECMC three-year Accreditation for Behavioral Health Opioid Treatment.

• Commission on Cancer (CoC), a quality program of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) granted another Three-Year Accreditation to the cancer program at Erie County Medical Center.

• The Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC) Accreditation Committee granted ECMC’s Specialty Pharmacy full Accreditation, effective Jan 1, 2026 – Jan 1, 2028.

• The Association for Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies, the national nonprofit professional, scientific and administrative association for individuals and institutions engaged in blood banking and transfusion medicine, accredited ECMC’s transfusion activities effective July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2027.

• The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP), in partnership with the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS), congratulated ECMC on achieving a three-year Comprehensive Center with Obesity Medicine Qualifications accreditation.

A native of Western New York, Dr. Quatroche is a past recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award from the SUNY Fredonia Alumni Association, the SUNY Buffalo State College Distinguished Alumni Award, the Buffalo Business First Inclusion Diversity, Equity and Awareness Award, and the Barry and Deanna Snyder Chairman’s Award from the Seneca Diabetes Foundation. He was the 2020 and the 2021 commencement speaker at his alma mater, State University of New York at Fredonia. Tom has served on the board and is past chair of the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) and is Chair of the Board of Directors of America’s Essential Hospitals (the Washington, DC-based organization representing the nation’s public hospitals), where he served formerly as chair of the Governance Committee. In June 2025, Tom received the American Hospital Association’s 2025 New York State Grassroots Champion Award at the HANYS annual conference in Saratoga Springs. HANYS nominated Tom for the award; the award is presented annually to one individual from each state.

Dr. Quatroche has also served on the Buffalo Niagara Partnership Board of Directors and he is a member of the Daemen University Board of Trustees. He is also a Trocaire College Trustee Emeritus. In 2023, Tom was appointed by NYS Governor Hochul to the Erie County Stadium Board of Directors. In December 2020, Tom was appointed co-lead of the Western New York Vaccine Hub, which was established by New York State to create a regional COVID-19 vaccination plan and distribute the vaccine broadly and equitably to the region’s residents. And in November 2020, Tom was appointed by the NYS Department of Financial Services and the NYS Department of Health to the 25-member Health Care Administrative Simplification Workgroup.

During his career, he has served on statewide committees in education for the State University of New York and served as a representative on the Governor’s New York State Medicaid Task Force. Dr. Quatroche has also been recognized for several consecutive years in the New York publication City & State’s Health Care Power 100. He has also been a featured presenter at healthcare conferences regarding various policy issues, including federal healthcare reform. He was recognized by City & State New York, the state’s premier media organization dedicated to covering New York’s local and state politics and policy, as one of the NYS’s 2025 Trailblazers in Health Care. According to City and State, the “list features advocates, experts and analysts and a wide range of medical professionals who are committed to improving the health of New Yorkers. [It] puts a spotlight on scores of exceptional individuals who are improving patient outcomes in New York and beyond.”

As a lifelong Western New Yorker, Dr. Quatroche has been very involved in the community. He served on the Hamburg Town Board from 1994-2009 and he is a past recipient of Buffalo Business First’s 40 Under 40 award for business and civic leadership.

Dr. Quatroche received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Marketing from the State University of New York College at Fredonia, a Master’s degree in Student Personnel Administration from the State University of New York College at Buffalo and his Doctorate in Higher Education – Educational Leadership and Policy from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

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About the Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) Corporation: The ECMC Corporation was established as a New York State Public Benefit Corporation and since 2004 has included an advanced academic medical center with 573 inpatient beds, on- and off-campus health centers, more than 30 outpatient specialty care services and Terrace View, a 390-bed long-term care facility.  ECMC is Western New York’s only Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, as well as a regional center for burn care, behavioral health services, transplantation, medical oncology and head & neck cancer care, rehabilitation, and a major teaching facility for the University at Buffalo.  Most ECMC physicians, dentists and pharmacists are dedicated faculty members of the university and/or members of a private practice plan.  More Western New York residents are choosing ECMC for exceptional patient care and patient experience. 

NEWS CONTACT: Peter K. Cutler at 716-316-3721 or pcutler@ecmc.edu – Sr. VP, Communications and External Affairs