UI Health

Nov 14, 2023

| 2023 Anna Falvey, Claire Wallace and Paige Haeffele - Tuesday, November 14th, 2023 Becker's is excited to showcase the accomplishments of 56 hospital and health system CMIOs and CNIOs. The physicians and nurses servings as chief medical officers and chief nursing officers are tasked with identifying new technologies, strategizing how best to integrate them into their organizations, and implementing them appropriately. Their work leads to more efficient healthcare delivery and ultimately improves the patient and provider experience. Note: This list is not an endorsement of included leaders, hospitals, health systems, or associated healthcare providers. Leaders cannot pay for inclusion on this list. Leaders are presented in alphabetical order. We accepted nominations for this list. Please contact Anna Falvey at afalvey@beckershealthcare.com with any questions or comments. Deborah Abram, MD. CMIO of Baptist Health (Jacksonville, Fla.). In 2020, Dr. Abram joined Baptist Health as CMIO, a role in which she leads physicians through transformational change in clinical care, quality care and electronic medical record adoption. Upon joining the system, she guided the system through a two-year conversion to Epic EHR, which unified patient health and financial records to make care more seamless. Thanks to this work, Baptist Health received the Level 10 Gold Star Achievement for advanced use of Epic. The current main focus of her role is partnering with clinical staff to optimize EHR use and reducing time spent on administrative tasks, so that clinicians can focus on providing the best care possible Dr. Abram has been a board-certified pediatric hospitalist for over 35 years. Robert Bart, MD. CMIO of UPMC (Pittsburgh). Dr. Bart became the chief medical information officer of UPMC in 2017 after previously serving as the first CMIO of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and chief medical officer at Cerner Corp. He oversees the health system's efforts to boost the use of EHRs and other technologies to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient care. Furthermore, Dr. Bart oversees UPMC's industry-leading efforts to advance the use of EHRs. Edwina Bhaskaran. Chief Clinical Systems and Informatics Officer of Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.). Ms. Bhaskaran is responsible for clinical informatics across Mayo Clinic's campuses. She spent nearly five years at Houston-based CommonSpirit Health as a leader in clinical informatics before joining Mayo Clinic in 2021 as chief nursing informatics officer. She became chief clinical systems and informatics officer in January. Ms. Bhaskaran also has experience at Cleveland Clinic as a member of the IT executive team that led the system through its first regional enterprise Epic implementation at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. James Blum, MD. CMIO of UI Health Care (Iowa City, Iowa). Dr. Blum was named CMIO of UI Health Care in December 2020 after serving as an assistant professor of anesthesia and biomedical informatics at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. He supports UI Health Care's efforts to develop information systems that improve care delivery. Dr. Blum is a trained computer scientist and licensed by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in clinical informatics. Alina Brebene, MD. CMIO at Jackson Health System (Miami). Dr. Brebene joined Jackson in 2015 as vice president and CMIO. She is responsible for Jackson's health informatics platform, which includes the design and implementation of various technologies to advance goals of the system. She is responsible for closing the loop control system for consulting ordering and reporting processes, the COVID-19 ordering process and vaccinations, utilization rules and securing messaging implementation using Cerner Messenger. She has also designed and redesigned consult notes to automatically complete consult orders. Under her leadership, Jackson has achieved HIMSS level seven validation for their efforts to advance health and wellness. Dr. Brebene is board-certified in clinical informatics, internal medicine and ECFMG. Kay Burke, BSN, RN. CNIO at UCSF Medical Center. Ms. Burke has been the CNIO at UCSF Medical Center since December 2017, where she arrived with five years of experience in clinical informatics at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Ms. Burke, who has more than 20 years of nursing experience, is a liaison between the nursing and IT teams to develop better clinical technologies and workflows. William Carracino, MD. CMIO and Chief Digital Health Executive of Lee Health (Fort Myers, Fla.). Dr. Carracino joined Lee Health in 1996. He now serves as both chief digital health executive and CMIO. A neurologist with an interest in computerization of health records, Dr. Carracino helped Lee Health become Epic's first community connect partner before he took on more clinical informatics responsibilities. He also works with the technology education team and leads efforts in digital transformation and virtual health. Michelle Charles, MSN, RN-BC. Senior Vice President and CNIO/Virtual Care at Parkview Health (Fort Wayne, Ind.). Ms. Charles earned the Douglas J. Leonard Indiana Caregiver of the Year Award from the Indiana Hospital Association in 2021 for leading the system's COVID-19 vaccine project team. Ms. Charles and her team opened a vaccine clinic at the Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation in less than a month to deliver more than 1,000 vaccines per day. Ms. Charles was the director of health informatics clinical content for Christus Health prior to joining Parkview in 2019. She has been a nurse for 35 years. Neal Chawla, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of WakeMed (Raleigh, N.C.). Dr. Chawla became the CMIO of WakeMed in 2018 with responsibility for the system's clinical informatics on technology adoption, data analytics and more. He spent a decade as associate CMIO and associate chief medical officer for clinical effectiveness at Fairfax, Va.-based Inova before coming to WakeMed. Eric Cheng, MD. Chief Medical Informatics Officer of UCLA Health. Dr. Cheng became interim CMIO in June 2015 and stepped into the role full time a year later. He has strategic and tactical leadership for the health system's technology efforts to support UCLA health's enterprise medical and physician quality, practice and efficiency goals. He has led the health system's meaningful use and other regulatory compliance efforts, physician informaticist teams and efforts to improve clinical quality with technology. Russ Cucina, MD. Chief Health Information Officer and Vice President for Genetic and Genomic Services of UCSF Health. Dr. Cucina is responsible for UCSF Health's analytics, software and information infrastructure and leads the clinical informatics teams. He also has executive leadership over provider services, information technologies and strategic partnerships at the system. He has more than 20 years of experience as a physician leader building a transparency-, trust-, empathy- and results-driven organization. He leads more than 400 employees working to improve the health system's business and consumer and patient experience. Erine Erickson, MD. CMIO for CommonSpirit Health (Chicago). Dr. Erickson, CMIO for CommonSpirit Health, oversees all of the health system's facilities using Oracle Cerner, including change governance, regulatory needs and EHR innovation. Recently, she led the implementation of a new referral module across hundreds of ambulatory clinics. She also developed an opioid stewardship dashboard for the entire organization. To give voice to clinicians, she has also served on several physician-led optimization committees. Prior to taking on her current role, she was CMIO for San Francisco-based Dignity Health's central coast market. Joseph Evans, MD. Chief Health Information Officer of Sentara Health (Norfolk, Va.). Dr. Evans oversees clinical informatics for the Sentara Health, including 12 hospitals, five free-standing emergency departments, and over 300 sites of care. He leads a team that designs decision support, user experience, and workflow efficiency for all care sites, driving the IT and workflow innovation for the health system. Under Dr. Evans' leadership, Sentara Health's informatics team has been an Epic top performer in designing interruptive design support, based on benchmarking data. Dr. Evans also co-led an initiative to standardize clinical communication for the entire health system over the past 2 years. Babatope Fatuyi, MD. CMIO at UTHealth Houston. Dr. Fatuyi joined UT Health in 2019 after spending three years as CMIO at NYC Health + Hospitals. He brings extensive history in operational and IT leadership at all levels of clinical informatics to his role. He also chairs the EHR Governance Taskforce, helping to approve, direct and prioritize EHR designs and content decisions in pursuit of optimized patient care. He is also the steering committee chair of the UTHealth Houston's Center for Digital Healthcare Innovation. Laura Fitzmaurice, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer and Associate Executive Medical Director of Children's Mercy Kansas City (Mo.). Dr. Fitzmaurice is the current chief medical information officer and associate executive medical director of Children's Mercy Kansas City. Previously, she was the division chief of emergency medical services from 2000 to 2009 and associate chair of clinical affairs for the Department of Pediatrics from 2006 to 2009. Dr. Fitzmaurice has been involved nationally in health information technology as a member of the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions' advisory committee, as well as a member of the Kansas and Missouri regional Health Information Exchange-Lewis and Clark Information Exchange board. Trish Gallagher, RN. Chief Nursing Information Officer at Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston). Ms. Gallagher joined Medical University of South Carolina in April 2022 after spending five years at Ascension, most recently as senior director of clinical products. She has experience overseeing the caregiver experience related to EHRs and technology platforms, and collaborating with senior leadership on strategic goals. Ms. Gallagher also has experience as senior director of nursing quality and informatics at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Va. Peter Greene, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore). Dr. Greene focuses on informatics in cardiothoracic surgery and spent time as chair of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons' IT committee. He also founded the Cardiothoracic Surgery Network, a community of 40 professional cardiothoracic surgery societies, where he continues to serve as executive editor. In addition, he co-founded the MedBiquitous Consortium, a nonprofit international medical professionals group to advance healthcare education with technology standards. Wael Haidar, MD. Chief Clinical Officer at Bon Secours Mercy Health (Marriottsville, Md.). Dr. Haidar spent 10 years at Mercy Clinics in Des Moines, Iowa, before joining Bon Secours and becoming the senior vice president of provider networks in 2017. He was then promoted to chief clinical officer with oversight over the strategic leadership of the clinical enterprise, medical informatics and population health. The health system has clinical operations at 50 hospitals and 1,200 care sites in the U.S. and Ireland. Mandy Grubb Halford, MD. Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and CMIO at Covenant Health (Knoxville, Tenn.). Dr. Halford has served as Covenant's first ever CMIO since 2016, focusing on combining her medical knowledge and technology expertise to improve patient care. She plays a pivotal role in leading the system's more than 10,000 employees, physicians and volunteers. She leads technology and operational processes for the system, assuring accurate information delivery to clinicians and caregivers, ultimately enhancing patient care, quality and safety. She also demonstrates a multifaceted skill set through shared responsibility for the operational, personnel and financial leadership of the IT and clinical informatics departments. This year, Dr. Halford also assumed the role of chief medical officer, adding to her responsibilities as CMIO. Her CMO role includes developing clinical protocols, influencing policy formation, managing physician development, ensuring patient safety and regulatory compliance, as well as overseeing medical staff affairs and the graduate medical education program. She has helped Covenant to implement a new EHR system, expand its tele-ICU program and establish the system's first continuing medical education program for physicians. She has over 15 years of experience in healthcare leadership, including nine with Covenant. C. William Hanson III, MD. Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Penn Medicine (Philadelphia). In 1990, after completing medical school, residency and fellowship within the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and hospitals, Dr. Hanson joined Penn Medicine as an anesthesiologist. He became the system's CMIO in 2010 and continues to serve as a professor of anesthesiology and critical care, surgery and internal medicine. He is a member of the American Medical Center Consortium and American College of Physicians. Sherri Hess, BSN, RN. Vice President and CNIO at HCA Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.). Ms. Hess provides strategic and operational leadership in the development, deployment, re-engineering and integration of clinical information systems at HCA to support clinicians and patient service. Her leadership style utilizes best practices and delivers on target and high quality results. She leads the organization's informatics department and has created various departments and built up best practices across the HCA system. She continually uses innovative ideas to transform problems into solutions. Her healthcare career spans 40 years, giving her an extensive background in informatics and leadership. She has also been an adjunct professor at the University of Denver since 2011, teaching healthcare IT. She joined HCA in 2022, previously serving as CNIO at Banner Health from 2017 to 2022. She also practice as a registered nurse at the start of her career. Vanessa Hill, MD. Chief Medical Informatics Officer at the Children's Hospital of San Antonio. Dr. Hill is a pediatric hospitalist and CMIO at the Children's Hospital of San Antonio, which is part of Irving, Texas-based Christus Health. She is also an associate professor and medical director of utilization and resource management at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Ben Hohmuth, MD. Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Geisinger (Danville, Pa.). Dr. Hohmuth spent time as the section chief of hospital medicine at Englewood (N.J) Hospital and Medical Center before joining Geisinger in the same role. He was named associate CMIO in 2017 and took on the CMIO role a year later. He aims to foster innovation for more customized care and improved workflows in the health system's EHR. Allen Hsiao, MD. Chief Health Information Officer at Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health System. Dr. Hsiao is a professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he also serves on medical informatics committees. As CMIO of the health system, he focuses on leveraging informatics and EHR to support research, optimize systems and improve care transitions. He is the primary investigator or co-investigator on multiple funded studies examining how IT can affect healthcare delivery. Dr. Hsiao also leads the medical informatics and data analytics efforts for the health system, which includes a team of more than 50 analysts in addition to database administrators and data architects. Louis Jeansonne, MD. CMIO at Ochsner Health (New Orleans). Dr. Jeansonne is responsible for the design, implementation and use of healthcare IT on a systemwide level at Ochsner's 46 hospitals and more than 370 care centers. He also ensures that IT is being used to improve patient care, safety and outcomes. He has both a clinical and an IT background, helping Ochsner pilot a new generative AI tool that helps providers more efficiently respond to patient questions. Dr. Jeansonne is a board-certified surgeon and has been on staff at Ochsner since 2008. Matthew Keefer, MD. CMIO for Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. As CMIO for Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Dr. Keefer is integral in defining the strategic vision for IT as it pertains to patient safety, quality of care, operational performance, and research and education across the clinical continuum. He is a key advisor, helping to formulate and execute business strategies that maximize the clinical utilization of IT. He also provides physician leadership, bringing evidence-based medicine to the point of care. Dr. Keefer has been at the hospital for over 20 years and also serves as president of the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles Medical Group. Lauren Koniaris, MD. Vice President and Chief Medical Informatics Officer of Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.). Dr. Koniaris is a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician. She has been vice president and CMIO of Hackensack Meridian Health since 2018, bridging the gap between IT and clinical teams. Her efforts focus on making sure clinical workflows and processes lead to safe and effective patient care while EHRs are implemented at hospitals across the system. Under her leadership, the health system aims to leverage the EHR to positively affect care delivery. Julie Luengas, DNP, RN. CNIO of Stony Brook (N.Y.) Medicine. Dr. Luengas is CNIO for Stony Brook Medicine, where she advances clinical quality and patient safety through optimal IT-enabled clinical initiatives as they relate to nursing. She owns the strategic vision for technology's integration in the clinical practice and workflow. Dr. Luengas serves as the translator and liaison for nursing informatics and other healthcare professionals. She brings more than 20 years of informatics experience to the role, having previously served as the vice president of informatics and CNIO of St. Louis-based Saint Thomas Health, now Ascension. Davin Lundquist, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of CommonSpirit Health (Chicago). Dr. Lundquist serves as system CMIO at CommonSpirit Health. Prior to assuming the role, he was the first chief medical information officer of ambulatory services for the system since 2020, where he supported a number of innovation projects in Ventura County, Calif. In addition, Dr. Lundquist joined Augmedix in 2019 as the chief medical officer. In this role, he drives technological innovation across Augmedix's product development teams while maintaining clinical quality and alignment with the fast-changing U.S. healthcare landscape. Mark Mabus, MD. CMIO and Vice President of EHR at Parkview Health (Fort Wayne, Ind.). Dr. Mabus first joined Parkview Health as a family medicine physician, and has since taken on informatics leadership roles. As CMIO and vice president of EHR, his focus is identifying potential workflow efficiencies for providers and working to implement them into Epic EHR. In 2019, he implemented a highly successful immunization reminder system. He is now tackling custom work surrounding Medicare Advantage's hierarchical condition category conditions. He also assists with clinical decision support, helping program new features into Parkview’s software. Another top priority is information systems education for the system and the community, which he achieves through interactive teaching, gamification and other engaging training techniques. Steve Magid, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer at Hospital for Special Surgery (New York City). Dr. Magid is a rheumatologist with a focus on improving the digital experience for patients and community members. He is a member of the American Medical Informatics Association and the Healthcare Information and Management System Society. Dr. Magid also chairs the quality research center at HSS and is co-chair of the system's quality coordinating committee. David McSwain, MD. System Chief Medical Informatics Officer at UNC Health (Chaple Hill, N.C.). Dr. McSwain is a professor of pediatric critical care medicine at UNC Children's Hospital in addition to his role as CMIO. He is also co-founder of an organization focused on supporting pediatric research on telehealth outcomes and utilization. Dr. McSwain has experience in digital health, clinician wellness, patient engagement and patient safety. In 2018, Dr. McSwain earned the American Telemedicine Association Champion Award for innovation in telehealth. Amy Merlino, MD. Enterprise Chief Medical Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Merlino is a member of the obstetrics and gynecology staff at Cleveland Clinic and connects the clinical team with IT as enterprise CMIO. She became director of clinical informatics for the system in 2010 before becoming associate CMIO; Dr. Merlino was promoted to her current role in 2017. She was named to Crain's Cleveland Business' "Notable Women in Technology" list in 2018. Jeana O'Brien, MD. Senior Vice President of Medical Informatics and Chief Medical Information Officer at Baylor Scott & White Health (Dallas). Dr. O'Brien is responsible for scaling EHR implementations, governance for standardizing clinical content and integrating informatics across the health system's platforms. She oversees EHR training to engage clinicians and optimize technology. Dr. O'Brien is also focused on clinical informatics and aligning physician, nurse and ambulatory informatics with enterprisewide training. Brett Oliver, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of Baptist Health System (Louisville, Ky.). Dr. Oliver became the chief medical information officer at Baptist Health System in 2017 after serving as a medical director at the company for several years. He is responsible for developing and implementing information technology alongside the chief information officer across the health system. In addition to providing clinical expertise to the IT team, Dr. Oliver works closely with other physicians to ensure the system's IT solutions are designed to meet the needs of staff and patients. Nishit Patel, MD. Vice President and CMIO at Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital. As vice president and CMIO at Tampa General Hospital, Dr. Patel creates and launches IT and informatics initiatives that enhance clinical quality, patient safety and clinician efficiency. Wielding his unique perspective as a provider, he provides technology support, design, consultation and training to support over 1,400 physicians and 750 residents and fellows across 150 locations. Recent accomplishments include leading the organization’s AI strategy and AI governance committees, and leading the development and support of Tampa General’s virtual care strategy, including deployment of outpatient telehealth, remote patient monitoring, eConsults and inpatient virtual enablement. His leadership has been key to Tampa General's growth, leading to the addition of 17 urgent care locations, 22 imaging centers, and over 25 ambulatory locations onto its technology infrastructure. A practicing dermatologist who is also board-certified in clinical informatics, Dr. Patel brings over a decade of healthcare experience to his role and has authored 24 peer-reviewed publications. Alexander Petron, MD. Vice President and CMIO of WellSpan Health (York, Pa.). In his role as vice president and CMIO at WellSpan Health, Dr. Petron is tasked with managing health informatics and overseeing all clinical IT staff. In order to develop and implement novel healthcare technologies, he analyzes healthcare trends, evaluates available resources and sets a plan in motion. His leadership allows WellSpan to leverage technology in a way that elevates patient care and daily operations, including innovative technologies like Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience, an AI-powered, voice-enabled documentation tool that frees up provider-patient time together. He also oversaw the development of a new genomics program in partnership with Helix. Maulik Purohit, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Health Information Officer for Lehigh Valley Health Network (Allentown, Pa.). Dr. Purohit, a digital and physician executive and clinical informaticist, brings over 15 years of digital leadership experience to his current role as senior vice president and chief health information officer. He leads large digital initiatives that see tangible results by leveraging digital infrastructure, product development, and business strategy. He has led a cloud infrastructure transition for the whole network and implemented a new paradigm of education, especially for the EHR, including training on personalization and optimization, workflows, value-based care, and the creation of a simulation lab. Thanks to new software for improved patient safety and quality, and thus reduced costs overall, the system expects to save between $8 million to $11 million each year. Aarti Ravikumar, MD. CMIO of Atlantic Health System (Morristown, N.J.). Dr. Ravikumar acts as an integral connector of the information services and support department and the system's 4,800-plus physicians. She supports the use of technology to improve patient care, streamline documentation and ensure compliance. Under her leadership, the system has achieved improved ease of access to health information for patients, enhanced patient privacy and information security, and better diagnosis and treatment. She was at the helm of the system's transition to Epic EHR and impacted the Information Blocking Statute within the 21st Century Cures Act, which requires immediate release of certain information to patients. Her leadership prepared thousands of physicians to release information in the safest and most meaningful way possible. Amy Rosa, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Information Officer at SCL Health (Broomfield, Colo.). Ms. Rosa joined SCL Health in 2020 after spending seven years at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Fla., where she served as director of clinical informatics and then eventually became vice president and chief nursing information officer. She has a master's degree in medical informatics and doctorate in nursing practice. Dawn Ross, RN. CCIO at Atrium Health (Charlotte, N.C.). Ms. Ross is a board-certified informatics nurse specialist who has shaped Atrium's technology strategy since joining the system in 2018. She oversees all clinical informatics across the system, acting as the primary liaison between the system's information and analytics services department and the end users of implemented technology. She works closely with leadership and teams across all markets to identify opportunities that can significantly influence business strategy, innovation, teammate productivity, and the quality and safety of patient care. Since joining Atrium, she has been instrumental in its technology evolution, leading the implementation of a new EHR and introducing new systems throughout the network. She came to the system with over 25 years of healthcare experience, first as a nurse with Indiana University Health. Ms. Ross has also helped system nurses implement Epic's Rover mobile technology that allows them to use their cellphones for basic charting and sending confidential messages to other members of the care team. Sophia Saleem, MD. CMIO of Ambulatory at Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.). Dr. Saleem became chief medical information officer of ambulatory services at Northwell Health in 2021. Her focus areas have been EMR implementation and optimization, inpatient and outpatient telemedicine implementation and optimization, validation and implementation of artificial intelligence in clinical settings, and managing priorities in ambulatory and inpatient care settings. Dr. Saleem's skills in collaboration have allowed her to implement many programs across complicated healthcare environments successfully. ​​Ed Sankary, MD. Chief Health Information and Value Officer at UTHealth San Antonio (Texas). Dr. Sankary is the chief health information and value officer for UTHealth San Antonio. His background in enterprise EHR, informatics, governance, analytics, business intelligence, population health, ACOs and clinical integration inform his current role. In his position, he is integral to the UTHealth enterprise, providing clinical leadership and steering systemwide initiatives like an analytics and AI program. He chairs the AI Collaborative for Healthcare and serves as the chief medical officer for UTHealth Health San Antonio Regional Physician Network. Salim Saiyed, MD. Vice President and CMIO of UPMC Central (Harrisburg, Pa.). Dr. Saiyed brings 15 years of experience leading strategic digital transformation, innovation, virtual care and data science operations at UPMC Central, a large academic health system. He leads a team of 12 direct and 300 indirect professionals with an annual budget of over $100 million, used to deliver patient-centered technology solutions to 4,400 physicians across 8 hospitals and more than 200 clinics. He has been instrumental in the development of digital health strategies that enable new care models, including virtual first primary care, virtual diabetes boot camp, after hospital video visits and more. One of his primary accomplishments has been the conversion of five acquired hospital system's to Epic EHR in under nine months, which resulted in over $30 million in annual savings. Christopher Sharp, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of Stanford University Medical Center (Palo Alto, Calif.). Dr. Sharp spent time as medical director for clinical informatics and associate CMIO before being promoted to CMIO in 2013. He is also a clinical professor of medicine, primary care and population health, at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Sharp is also a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford. Joseph Stein. MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of Inpatient at Scripps Health (San Diego). Dr. Stein became the chief medical information officer of inpatient at Scripps Health in 2019 after serving as the medical director of EMR for nearly six years. He provided the vision for the clinical design and build of the Epic EMR. Wave 3 of activation was completed in October 2018, with all five hospitals now using Epic fully, transitioning from paper charting and orders. Maritza M. Suarez, MD. CMIO at University of Miami Health System. Dr. Suarez, a dually board-certified physician in clinical informatics and internal medicine, serves as CMIO for University of Miami Health System. The role combines medical expertise with information technology to enhance patient care, research and education. As CMIO, she collaborates with stakeholders to identify ways to leverage technology for improved patient outcomes, clinical workflows, and data management and analytics. She bridges the gap between the clinical and technical domains to integrate the EHR and other health IT systems into daily practice. She also keeps abreast of emerging technologies, trends, and regulation, implementing innovative solutions such as telemedicine, mobile health applications, and AI algorithms. Dr. Suarez also created the clinical informatics pathway for medical students. Donna Summers, RN, MSN. CNIO for Henry Ford Health (Detroit). Ms. Summers has been CNIO for Henry Ford Health since 2017. She leads the nursing service in the safe implementation of novel technologies and directs major projects related to nursing efficiency and revenue improvement. She liaises with system leaders to leverage medical, health and operational data in pursuit of enhanced quality and operational outcomes. Among many recent accomplishments, she developed the Nursing Workforce Challenge in 2022 to help reduce nurse burnout. Now, she is leading the provision of iPhones to nurses in the acute care setting, to allow them quicker access to documentation and workflow programs. Her execution of this bedside mobile program, paired with her line validation efforts and a partnership with the Arch Collaborative research organization, has resulted in Henry Ford Health nurses ranking in the 73rd percentile for EHR satisfaction. Ms. Summers is also integral to the multidisciplinary virtual intensive care unit workgroup, working to help remote clinicians provide bedside partners with real time support. Jeffrey Sunshine, MD, PhD. CMIO at University Hospitals (Cleveland). Dr. Sunshine is the primary liaison between clinical and IT caregivers at University Hospitals. He also leads a team of associate CMIOs partnering with IT departments to optimize the system's use of EHRs and other clinical systems. He is also part of a team focused on the implementation of a new EHR; the largest initiative in the system's 157-year history. He also remains a practitioner of diagnostic and interventional neuroradiology. Dr. Sunshine is passionate about making sure providers and caregivers have the best technology and tools available to them to support the delivery of exceptional patient care. Several UH initiatives have been launched thanks to Dr. Sunshine's vision, including enterprise-wide acute and ambulatory electronic medical records, Radiology PACS, unified clinical portals for providers and patients and enterprise image management. He also actively supports the system's telehealth and virtual care team. Srinivasan Suresh, MD. CMIO and Vice President at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh (Pa.). Dr. Suresh is responsible for and provides leadership in the planning, development and implementation of strategic and tactical clinical information systems at UPMC. He oversees the system's EHRs, advanced analytics initiatives, consumer-patient portal and telehealth services. He also provides physician leadership using clinical data to monitor variations in care and best practices, leads his teams in providing customer oriented services and works in collaboration with the hospital's research community to facilitate implementation and use of informatics. Dr. Suresh is also board-certified in pediatrics and clinical informatics and has 25 years of experience as a pediatric emergency physician and 13 years of experience as an IT executive. In 2015, he gave a TedX talk on "applying big data to little patients." In 2023, he was named a changemaker in health by HIMSS. Tinu Tadese, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of University Hospitals Lake Health System (Concord, Ohio). Dr. Tadese became chief medical information officer of Lake Health System in 2021 after serving as vice president for two years. She is responsible for providing oversight of her organization's optimal use of the EHR and using technology and analytics to assist in the quality and patient safety initiatives and population health management. Dr. Tadese is skilled at using artificial intelligence to optimize clinical documentation to maximize the organization's bottom line. Paul Testa, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer of NYU Langone Health (New York City). Dr. Testa became the chief medical information officer of NYU Langone Health in 2016 after spending several years as the medical director for clinical transformation at NYU Langone Health and as the chief of service and medical director at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases. He is responsible for serving as the clinical informatics physician leader; stewarding telemedicine initiatives; and shepherding programs in clinical quality, digital patient and clinician experience, predictive analytics, and informatics research. Dr. Testa also transforms and advances how NYU Langone Health delivers care via new technologies. Amy Trainor, RN. Vice President and Chief Application Officer at Ochsner Health (New Orleans). Ms. Trainor works closely with Dr. Jeansonne at Ochsner, and is also responsible for  the design, implementation and use of healthcare IT on a systemwide level at Ochsner's 46 hospitals and more than 370 care centers. She is also passionate about using IT to improve patient care and safety. She uses her nursing and IT background to develop generative AI tools hand-in-hand with Dr. Jeansonne. She is an experienced nurse leader skilled in EHR design, build, support and education. She is an information technology professional with a clinical background focused in health from LSU Shreveport. Rosemary Ventura, DNP, RN-BC. Chief Nursing Information Officer at University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center. Dr. Ventura became the first chief nursing informatics officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in 2017 and then joined University of Rochester as CNIO in 2019. She has experience leading teams responsible for clinical applications used across health systems and physician offices. Dr. Ventura also focuses on health equity in her role. Vinay Vaidya, MD. Senior Vice President and CMIO of Phoenix Children’s. Phoenix Children’s CMIO, Dr. Vaidya, assumes a balanced approach to EHR utilization and implementation, with patient outcome the very top priority. He and his team use EHR data to streamline patient care and achieve meaningful clinical outcomes by extracting, analyzing and synthesizing data in a way that provides actionable insights. Every scrap of patient data is homed in the organization’s internally developed data warehouse, where Dr. Vaidya has developed more than 50 custom-built dashboards. These dashboards are used across the ambulatory, inpatient, emergency room, operating rooms and intensive care units, and allow the team to respond with agility to clinical needs. The data that Dr. Vaidya has collected with remote patient monitoring has led to the establishment of a malnutrition app, a diet therapy app, a cleft palate app, a leukemia app, and WATCHER, a digital surveillance program that alerts clinicians when a hospitalized child is at risk of deterioration. In addition to serving as CMIO, Dr. Vaidya is also a pediatric critical care medicine specialist. DuWayne Willett, MD. CMIO at the University of Texas Southwestern Health System (Dallas). Dr. Willett has helped UT Southwestern to develop information systems and databases for its Dallas Heart Study. He is also a professor in the university's department of internal medicine's division of cardiology. He has published a number of articles on heart valve disease and medical informatics. He also co-led a Southwestern team that earned an innovator award from Healthcare Informatics magazine. He has also been instrumental in Southwestern's artificial intelligence journey.