Randa Perkins, MD, is stepping into her new role as chief health information officer of Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth Health with a focus on listening first and building on the system’s strengths.
Dr. Perkins, who previously served in clinical informatics leadership at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., said the move gives her the chance to return to broader community medicine after years focused primarily on oncology.
“This feels right,” she said, calling the transition “a homecoming of sorts” that allows her to support care across specialties while continuing to advance clinical informatics as a field.
Since stepping into the position in January, her first priority has been understanding where Dartmouth Health stands.
“One is to get the lay of the land,” she said, noting the organization has “an extensive history and a lot to be proud of.” From there, she hopes to help define goals for the next several years and determine how informatics and technology can help move the system forward.
Her early conversations with clinicians and leaders have revealed familiar challenges seen across healthcare, including how to adopt innovative technologies quickly while maintaining safety and working within tightening resource constraints.
AI is central to those discussions. Dr. Perkins, who also serves on a federal advisory council focused on healthcare technology policy, said her approach emphasizes careful and purposeful adoption.
“We don’t do AI for the sake of AI,” she said. “We would do AI for the sake of what’s right for the patients and our providers and researchers here at Dartmouth Health.”
So far, she sees Dartmouth Health taking a forward-thinking but cautious approach, with teams exploring advanced technologies while maintaining safeguards and focusing on practical value for clinicians and patients.
Reducing clinician workload is another immediate priority. As a family medicine physician, Dr. Perkins said documentation demands and inbox management remain major sources of burden.
Tools such as ambient documentation, which automatically generate clinical notes during patient encounters, are becoming increasingly common and can help ensure accurate records without adding administrative work, she said. AI-powered tools that summarize information and streamline communication may also help clinicians stay responsive without becoming overwhelmed.
“The evolution of appropriate AI tools has been so rapid that it gives me hope for what we can do in the near future,” she said.
Beyond specific technologies, Dr. Perkins said what has stood out most in her early days in her new position is the system’s momentum and breadth, from academic medicine to rural and community care.
“There is something electric about Dartmouth Health,” she said, adding that the organization’s mix of services and settings could help inform care models nationally.
For now, her focus remains on meeting people, understanding workflows and helping teams do their work more effectively.
“I wish I could shadow every single person here,” she said, noting that seeing clinicians interact with patients often reveals more than documentation alone. “There is something magical … witnessing patient care.”
Dr. Perkins added that she hopes her work will also continue raising awareness of clinical informatics as a growing specialty within healthcare.
“I’m super passionate about the field,” she said. “And I want to continue to grow it.”
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