Health IT movers and shakers: 20 latest leadership changes affecting health IT

Julie Spitzer -

In the last month, Becker's Hospital Review reported the following hospital and health system CIO and chief technology officer moves as well as other executive moves affecting health IT companies and federal agencies.

Editor's note: The executive moves are listed in the order they were reported on.

1. Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica named Kate Sommerfeld president of social determinants of health. 

2. The U.S. Department of Defense appointed Essye Miller its acting CIO, effective Dec. 8.

3. Outcome Health, which recently came under fire for misleading advertisers on the success of their ads' performances, promoted ex-Twitter executive Nandini Ramani to COO.

4. HealthlinkNY, which operates the health information exchange connecting providers in 13 New York counties, announced its President and CEO Christina Galanis is resigning, effective Dec. 31. Staci Romeo, HealthlinkNY's senior vice president, will take over as interim executive director.

5. CVS Health's CIO Stephen Gold resigned to "pursue professional opportunities outside of CVS Health."  

6. Intellia Therapeutics, a genome editing company focused on developing therapeutics using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, promoted John Leonard, MD, to president and CEO, effective Jan. 1.

7. Akron (Ohio) Children's Hospital named Steven Spalding, MD, director of pediatric rheumatology and vice president of population health.  

8. Boston-based Harvard Medical School installed John Halamka, MD, as its inaugural International Healthcare Innovation Professor. Dr. Halamka is senior vice president of information systems and CIO of Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

9. Karen DeSalvo, MD, a former leader at HHS' ONC, joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Austin's Dell Medical School, effective in January. 

10. Eric Schmidt, PhD, stepped down from his role as executive chairman of Google's parent company, Alphabet, in January.

11. The American Health Information Management Association named Diann H. Smith as president and chair of its 2018 board of directors, effective Jan. 1.

12. The Dallas-based Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation appointed Richard Daniels of Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente to its board of directors, the organization confirmed Jan. 3.

13. MDLive, a telemedicine services provider, selected Rich Berner to serve as CEO.

14. Northwestern Medicine's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago selected Firas Wehbe, MD, PhD, to serve as chief research informatics officer, a newly created position. 

15. The American Health Information Management Association appointed Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CEO, effective Feb. 5. 

16. Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health named Tanya Arthur senior vice president and CIO, effective Jan. 23. 

17. SRS Health, an EHR and health IT solution vendor to orthopedics and other high-performance specialty practices, promoted Khal Rai to president and CEO, effective immediately,

18. Wayne Grodsky joined the executive team at Specialists on Call as chief growth officer.  

19. Nearly six months after Cerner lost CEO and Chairman Neal Patterson to an ongoing battle with cancer, the company appointed Brent Shafer as Mr. Patterson's replacement, effective Feb. 1.

20. The ONC appointed Kathryn Marchesini chief privacy officer.

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