The Plumber of Elderly Care Tech
In the mythology of American technology, the heroes build apps that everyone downloads. Michael Zawadski built something harder to see and far more difficult to replace: the operating infrastructure for the programs that keep frail elderly people out of nursing homes.
PACE - the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly - is one of the federal government's most ambitious bets on community-based care. These programs integrate medical, social, and support services for people who would otherwise require nursing facility-level care. They are logistically complex. They are compliance-heavy. They run on software that most people have never heard of.
For over a decade, Zawadski was the person running that software. As CEO and President of RTZ Systems in Lafayette, California, he oversaw platforms that managed patient records, financial administration, and care coordination for PACE centers across the country. RTZ's flagship product - GetCare - became one of the sector's trusted workhorses. Their PACECare EHR was licensed directly to PACE facilities to manage patient health data. This was not the kind of startup that made conference keynotes. It made care possible.
"I am honored to lead Collabrios Health and bring together the best capabilities from both AnewHealth and RTZ Systems to create the optimal future infrastructure for our PACE clients."
- Michael Zawadski, on becoming CEO of Collabrios Health, October 2024The Merger That Made a Platform
In October 2024, Assured Healthcare Partners LLC (AHP) announced something the PACE technology market had never quite seen: a deliberate consolidation of the sector's most trusted tools into a single company. The new entity - Collabrios Health - combined RTZ Systems with AnewHealth's EHR assets (PACELogic, TruChart, and the CASELogic care management platform) and PeerPlace Networks, a platform serving community-based organizations.
AHP tapped Zawadski to lead the result. He wasn't a safe, decorative choice for a press release - he was the operator who knew the market's mechanics, its regulatory constraints, its clients' frustrations. He'd been living inside this world for years. The question wasn't whether he understood the product. The question was whether he could integrate multiple organizations, cultures, and technology stacks without losing what made each valuable.
The mandate was ambitious: serve 125+ PACE programs, support 1,000+ home and community-based organizations, and build unified infrastructure for over one million individuals. Within months, Zawadski began assembling the executive team to execute it.
Building the Team
In April 2025, Zawadski announced five senior appointments at Collabrios Health - a signal that the integration phase was moving from planning into execution. Kevin Lathrop came aboard as President, bringing 20+ years of healthcare technology leadership including stints at Exela Technologies and Transaction Data Systems. Jett Reidy joined as CTO, with expertise in SaaS platforms, value-based care, and FHIR data interoperability. Brian Roseland took on SVP of Data and Analytics; Annie Silverman became SVP of Platforms and Delivery; Michelle Slade led Third-Party Administration.
Zawadski's framing of the hires was precise: "These five leaders bring deep healthcare expertise, execution capabilities, and a shared commitment to modernizing care infrastructure." Not innovation for its own sake. Not disruption. Modernization - the harder, more disciplined work of upgrading systems that real people and real organizations already depend on.
"These five leaders bring deep healthcare expertise, execution capabilities, and a shared commitment to modernizing care infrastructure."
- Michael Zawadski, April 2025, on Collabrios Health executive appointmentsA Lawyer in a Software World
Zawadski holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law. In the startup world, a legal education tends to be read as a detour - something you do before you find your real path. In healthcare technology, it looks more like preparation.
PACE programs operate under a complex web of federal and state regulations. The software that runs them must navigate compliance requirements, patient privacy law, and financial reporting standards that would overwhelm a purely engineering-led organization. A CEO who can read a contract, understand regulatory risk, and think through liability has a material edge. Zawadski's reported skill set - Investments, Equities, Risk Management, Financial Services - suggests he approached the business with a financial rigor that paired naturally with the legal framework he trained in.
The combination made him an unusual figure in the healthcare technology space: not a clinician, not a pure technologist, but an operator with the cross-disciplinary fluency that the sector's complexity demands.
A Decade in the Slow Lane That Wasn't
RTZ Systems was founded in 1999 - before "cloud" was even a marketing term. By the time Zawadski stepped into the CEO role around 2013, the company had over a decade of institutional knowledge about how PACE programs actually operated. He spent more than a decade deepening that knowledge, building platforms, and navigating the competitive dynamics of a niche market that outsiders often overlooked.
GetCare Platform
RTZ's flagship cloud platform for case management, service coordination, and administration of long-term care programs - serving state agencies, county departments, and care organizations.
PACECare EHR
Electronic health records software built specifically for PACE facilities, managing patient health information and care workflows within one of healthcare's most regulated models.
Collabrios Intelligence
A data and analytics platform built to help PACE programs and aging-services organizations make sense of their operational and clinical data at scale.
The PACE market is competitive in a particular way: not many players, but high stakes. In 2024, RTZ Systems faced a lawsuit from Intus Care Inc. over PACE data and software licensing practices - a reminder that even niche health-tech markets have sharp edges. Zawadski was navigating that landscape while simultaneously managing the merger that would become Collabrios Health.
Alongside his corporate leadership, Zawadski served on the Board of Directors of NADSA - the National Adult Day Services Association - bringing a vendor's perspective to the national advocacy body for adult day services. The dual role gave him visibility into both the technology side and the policy environment that his clients operated within.