Earl Wilson Ferguson PhD MD
Dr. Earl W. Ferguson, MD, PhD is a healthcare executive, cardiologist, and preventive medicine specialist with a major interest in cardiovascular imaging, telemedicine, telehealth, telecommunications and computer applications to healthcare. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Physicians and the American College of Preventive Medicine.
He is CEO of Sun BioMedical Technologies that he and his wife, Sun Hye Paik, PhD, DPharm, founded in 2002 for research on inflammatory diseases, including early, undetected atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. He is coordinating development of Cardiovascular Imaging and Coronary Artery Risk Evaluation (CARE) Programs at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital and Coordinated Cardiovascular Care in the high desert region of Southern California.
He provides cardiology consults to Ridgecrest Regional Hospital and its Rural Health Clinic. He also provides telemedicine consults to remote areas of the high desert of California and remotely monitors patients with pacemakers and automated implantable cardiac defibrillators. He is Medical Director, National Rural Accountable Care Organization, and Executive Director of the Southern Sierra Telehealth Network established in 2001. He has served on numerous boards, including the California State Rural Healthcare Association, California Broadband Cooperative (Digital 395 Project), California Telehealth Network, California Health Information Partnership & Services Organization, Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, and National Space Biomedical Research Institute External Advisory Council. He was on the Editorial Board, Telemedicine and eHealth Journal for almost two decades.
Dr. Ferguson was a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service as the Director of Aerospace Medicine and Occupational Health for NASA before moving to Ridgecrest in 1996 to develop advanced rural health information technology applications. He has been in public service his entire career, spending most of his Federal service career in academic and leadership positions, including commanding and supervising large healthcare systems, hospitals and medical centers.