Harold Laufman

Dr. Laufman was founder and first chairman of the Committee on Operating Room Environment of the American College of Surgeons; founder member and later president and chairman of the board of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation; chairman of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Panel on Classification of Surgical Devices; member of the Advisory Committee on Guidelines for Construction and Equipment of Medical Facilities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources and Services Administration, among others.

Dr. Laufman is an emeritus professor of surgery and a board certified general and vascular surgeon with an educational background in architecture and engineering. He received his MD degree from Rush Medical College and a PhD degree in surgery from Northwestern University Medical School. His engineering training was obtained at Northwestern's Institute of Engineering. His education in architecture was received at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture where he later served on the faculty as professorial lecturer on surgical environment. Formerly he had been a professor of surgery at Northwestern University Medical School and professor of surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  He was also director of the Institute for Surgical Studies at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

His fundamental studies in medical bioengineering and hazard control in the OR environment combined with his many years as a practicing surgeon became the basis for his consulting work. During his consulting career he has served over 200 hospitals in the United States, Canada and abroad.
 
 

Barry Badner

Barry Badner holds a degree of Bachelor of Industrial Engineering and MS in Operations Research from New York University. He has served in the health care field in the capacity of consultant for over 20 years, and is a Certified Management Consultant. In the course of his career he has completed successful consulting assignments for more than 70 organizations or institutions.

Mr. Badner devoted the first decade of his work experience to the industrial environment, working primarily as management consultant for management consulting firms and performed consulting studies for over a dozen Fortune 500 companies in the areas of manufacturing and warehousing facilities design, materials handling systems and operating systems improvement.

As a consultant in the health care field, he has been entrusted with primary responsibility for more than 75 assignments in almost 50 hospitals in facilities programming, or systems improvement studies for surgical suites, intensive care units, central supply and distribution areas, outpatient facilities and clinics, and emergency departments.

In surgical suite systems studies, he has developed original systems for surgical suite scheduling, staffing patterns designed for better service at lower cost, and improvements in utilization. He has also performed a large number of studies in materials management systems, organization and management reporting systems, and costing and profitability analysis.
 
 

Lawrence Zelner

Lawrence Zelner holds the degree of BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnical Institute of New York. He has served in the healthcare field in the capacity of consultant for over 20 years, and is a Certified Management Consultant. In the course of his career, he has been engaged in consulting assignments for more than 75 clients and organizations.

During the early years of his working experience with Fortune 500 companies, he was involved in the planning and implementation of large scale manufacturing automation and construction projects throughout the United States.

As a consultant in the healthcare field for more than 20 years, he has had extensive experience in planning for renovation or replacement of various types of special care departments, as well as master planning for diversified special care areas of the hospital. He has played a leading role in both facilities planning and systems design. He has developed facilities programs for surgical suites and other special care facilities including surgical day care units, intensive care units, obstetrical delivery suites, central supply, special procedures, rehabilitation medicine departments, and cardiac rehabilitation departments, among others.

As a facilities planner, he has worked closely with many hospitals, architects and engineers throughout the United States and Canada to implement innovative yet practical approaches to configuration, communications, transportation and mechanical support systems, as well as detailed design development and equipment specifications.