As hospitals and health systems add C-suite roles to oversee AI, data, digital transformation and cybersecurity, the line between who owns what is becoming increasingly blurred.
Beyond the traditional CIO and CTO, organizations frequently add specialized roles like the chief innovation officer, chief digital and information officer, chief data officer and emerging positions like the chief AI officer. Oftentimes these roles can have overlapping responsibilities.
Becker’s asked two CIOs: Is the IT C-suite getting too crowded?
“Yes, particularly when organizations create a new executive title every time an important technology emerges,” Muhammad Siddiqui, CIO of Richmond, Ind.-based Reid Health, told Becker’s. “After 25 years in healthcare technology, I’ve learned that the number of titles matters far less than whether accountability is clear. Digital, information technology, data, cybersecurity, automation and AI are increasingly part of the same operating model.”
Mr. Siddiqui added that all of these titles require different expertise, but they cannot be managed as “separate islands.”
“There may be valid reasons for a large health system to have a CIO, chief digital officer, chief technology officer and chief AI officer,” he said. “However, each role must have distinct decision rights, measurable outcomes, and a clear relationship to the organization’s clinical and business strategy. Otherwise, more titles can create fragmented priorities, competing roadmaps, duplicated investments and slower decisions.”
AI is a good example. Over the past two years, hospitals and health systems across the country have added the chief AI officer to their C-suites in inaugural roles, signaling that AI oversight has been elevated to top leadership. Many of the job descriptions center around dedicated responsibility for AI governance, implementation and oversight.
The role hasn’t emerged without friction, though. CIOs have traditionally owned AI initiatives as part of their broader technology and digital transformation portfolios, so adding a chief AI officer alongside them can create overlapping claims over strategy and sign-off authority.
Most health systems appear to be resolving that by structure rather than separation. New hires are most often landing under the CIO, with a strong tie to the chief medical information officer, positioning the chief AI officer as a governance layer on top of existing IT leadership rather than a competing one.
AI is “too consequential to be treated as just another IT project,” according to Mr. Siddiqui, but that doesn’t automatically mean every organization needs a chief AI officer.
“The first question should be what problem the new role will solve and what authority it will have that doesn’t already exist,” he said. “At Reid Health, combining digital and information responsibilities allows us to connect infrastructure, applications, data, cybersecurity, innovation, and the patient and caregiver experience under one accountable strategy.”
Sha Edathumparampil, chief digital and information officer at Coral Gables, Fla.-based Baptist Health South Florida, agreed, saying technology is converging in healthcare.
“AI, digital and data are now one integrated stack, with more of the technical work itself being done by AI under human supervision,” he told Becker’s. “Yet C-suite titles in this space appear to be proliferating.”
The CIO, CDO, CTO and CAIO all touch the same data and platforms, and when they sit in separate organizational verticals, accountability gets diluted and execution slows down, according to Mr. Edathumparampil.
“A new C-title is not a substitute for strategy — and that’s a useful test: does a well-defined business strategy and roadmap exist, or just a new title?” he said.
Mr. Siddiqui said a sign a hospital or health system may be adding more C-suite tech titles than it actually needs is when several executives participate in the same initiative, but no one owns the outcome from beginning to end.
“If teams spend more time determining whether an initiative belongs to IT, digital, data, innovation or AI than they spend solving the problem, the structure has become too complicated,” he said.
There will also be a divide in the technology portfolio: overlapping platforms, separate vendor relationships, competing governance groups and multiple budgets aimed at similar outcomes, according to Mr. Siddiqui.
“Titles should clarify accountability, not divide it,” he said. “A health system should add an executive role when the scale, complexity and risk of the work require dedicated leadership, not simply because the title is becoming common across the industry.”
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