Becker’s Healthcare is delighted to highlight pioneering chief innovation officers from hospitals and health systems across the country.
These forward-looking leaders help their organizations stay ahead in an evolving care landscape by championing inventive, strategic and future-focused solutions. From introducing transformative technologies and refining patient care approaches to cultivating impactful collaborations, chief innovation officers are accelerating meaningful progress throughout healthcare.
Note: This list is not exhaustive, nor is it an endorsement of included hospitals, health systems or associated healthcare providers. Leaders and organizations cannot pay for inclusion on this list. Leaders are presented in alphabetical order. We extend a special thank you to Rhoda Weiss for her contributions to this list.
We accepted nominations for this list. Please contact Anna Falvey at afalvey@beckershealthcare.com with any questions or comments.
Feby Abraham, PhD. Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston). Dr. Abraham is executive vice president and chief strategy and innovation officer at Memorial Hermann Health System, where he oversees strategic investments, corporate development, market insights and innovation. Since joining in 2020, he has advanced partnerships and digital transformation efforts designed to expand access to high-quality care at lower cost, including virtual care and care-at-home models. Recently, he has helped expand urgent care access across Greater Houston through a joint venture with GoHealth. He also led integration with Zocdoc to enable real-time appointment scheduling and supported partnerships with Wellvana for the system’s Medicare ACO and Monogram Health for kidney disease care. Since 2020, his work has resulted in more than 50 strategic equity investments and 25 new partnerships and joint ventures aligned to affordability, convenience and personalization. Internally, Dr. Abraham co-founded the Memorial Hermann Innovation Hub and advanced the iGenerate idea platform, with the hub identifying more than 80 system challenges and launching more than 20 pilots across care at home, behavioral health, population genomics and AI-enabled clinical support.
Craig Anderson. Vice President of Innovation at BayCare Health System (Clearwater, Fla.). Mr. Anderson is vice president of innovation at BayCare Health System, a nonprofit academic system comprising 16 hospitals and hundreds of care locations across West Central Florida. He has expanded tech-enabled access and patient experience initiatives, including launch of TechDeck to help patients and families navigate digital health tools. Mr. Anderson also helped extend access for underserved populations through Uber Health, supported by a $300,000 grant to fund transportation. He led the modernization of clinical communication by integrating PatientSafe with Apple iPhones and expanded smart-room capabilities through Alexa-enabled inpatient rooms. To reduce staff workload, BayCare deployed Relay delivery robots at BayCare St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla. and advanced voice documentation tools such as Oracle CAA and Nuance DAX to reduce documentation burden. His portfolio also includes a partnership with Amazon to launch a full-scale “Just Walk Out” café at BayCare St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Fla., reducing average shopping time from 10–13 minutes to about 3.5 minutes while supporting more than 2,100 weekday transactions.
Scott Arnold. Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital. Mr. Arnold is executive vice president and chief digital and innovation officer at Tampa General Hospital, where he leads enterprise technology, innovation and cybersecurity strategy. He joined the organization in 2010 to lead its largest technology implementation to date, the conversion of the EHR, and has spent 15 years expanding digital capabilities across the academic health system. Mr. Arnold oversees TGH Ventures, the system’s innovation center and corporate venture fund, and directs the integration of biomedical devices with systemwide technologies. Under his leadership, Tampa General extended its partnership with Palantir to evolve CareComm into the Care Coordination Command Center, which continuously aggregates thousands of data points to inform real-time decision-making across care settings. The organization is deploying Palantir’s AI platform to build a care coordination operating system and automate additional workflows, including revenue cycle management. Leveraging this coordination platform, Tampa General reduced sepsis-related mortality among hospitalized patients by 3% in the first couple of years of implementation, saving nearly 200 lives.
Michael P. Ast, MD. Chief Medical Innovation Officer, Chief of the Knee Service and Director of Ambulatory Surgery Center Strategy at Hospital for Special Surgery (New York City). Dr. Ast is chief medical innovation officer, chief of the knee service and director of ambulatory surgery center strategy at Hospital for Special Surgery, where he advances technology-enabled orthopedic care and scalable surgical pathways. He has spearheaded initiatives integrating robotics, data-driven decision-making and patient-specific solutions to improve outcomes and accelerate recovery in joint replacement. He pioneered joint replacement pathways implemented across more than 200 ambulatory surgery centers, expanding access while setting standards for safety, efficiency and recovery. A major focus of his work has been opioid-sparing pain management, with initiatives that significantly reduced opioid use in joint replacement patients while maintaining excellent outcomes. Dr. Ast collaborates with medical technology companies to design implants and tools now used globally, and serves as an educator for surgeons through trainings, webinars and international operating room observerships.
Kiran Avancha, PhD. Chief Innovation Officer for HonorHealth (Scottsdale, Ariz.). Dr. Avancha has positioned HonorHealth as a leader in innovation locally and nationally, notably through first-in-human breakthroughs at the HonorHealth Research Institute. He established HonorHealth Innovations, the system’s venture arm supporting early-stage companies, which has become a national model for collaboration and emulation. Dr. Avancha has also founded external companies, including one developing a drug for rare pediatric diseases, significantly improving care for vulnerable populations. With numerous publications, research awards and significant grant support, Dr. Avancha is a prominent figure in healthcare innovation. As a community leader, board member, advisor and sought-after speaker, he continues to drive healthcare advancements and mentor emerging innovators.
Sangeeta Bardhan Cook, PhD. Chief Innovation Officer at Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia). Dr. Bardhan Cook is chief innovation officer at Fox Chase Cancer Center and senior vice president of commercialization strategy and business development at Philadelphia-based Temple University Health System, where she leads translational strategy across digital transformation, diagnostics and therapeutics. Since joining in August 2022, she has shifted commercialization efforts toward de-risking early-stage technologies, prioritizing maturation of discoveries to improve investor and partner readiness rather than pursuing immediate patenting. She is advancing industry-academic alliances for multi-cancer early detection and minimal residual disease testing and forming an accelerator to translate proprietary cancer diagnostic assays to patients with supporting infrastructure investment. Dr. Bardhan Cook is also developing partnerships to strengthen radiopharmaceutical supply through a fully integrated contract development and manufacturing organization relationship and is building a program to harness patient multi-omic information to generate new clinical insights. Her portfolio includes collaboration with an AI company to prepare radiology images for model training and leadership of clinical development for a first-in-class therapeutic originating from Fox Chase discovery. Dr. Bardhan Cook has been recognized as a 2025 “IAM Strategy 300” designee.
John Brownstein, PhD. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Brownstein serves both as senior vice president and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s, as well as a professor of pediatrics and biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers. His focus is on novel methods and applications in public health surveillance. His work has pioneered “digital epidemiology”, utilizing diverse digital data sources to understand population health. Dr. Brownstein’s research is recognized for its translational impact, particularly through the development and application of AI, data mining and citizen science. His innovative platforms, such as Vaccines.gov, Global.health and HealthMap, serve millions annually and have received recognition from the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. Dr. Brownstein’s contributions extend beyond academia into advisory roles for top agencies including the World Health Organization, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control and The White House. His efforts at Boston Children’s have catalyzed the launch of new startups and unique collaborations with companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, Uber, Instacart, Microsoft and OpenAI. Dr. Brownstein is also co-founder of digital health companies Epidemico and Circulation. He also serves as an ABC medical news contributor.
Charles Bruce, MB, ChB. Chief Innovation Officer for Mayo Clinic Florida (Jacksonville). Dr. Bruce is chief innovation officer for Mayo Clinic in Florida and medical director of the Mayo Clinic Berg Innovation Exchange, where he leads efforts to advance patient-centered innovation from early concept through commercialization. He was named Mayo Clinic’s “Distinguished Inventor” in 2023 and has more than 160 patent filings, 34 issued patents and seven co-founded startups, spanning diagnostics, therapeutics and digital health. Dr. Bruce has helped shape the Berg Innovation Exchange as an enterprise resource designed to democratize innovation support and connect clinicians, researchers and entrepreneurs around scalable solutions. His leadership was instrumental in securing a $50 million philanthropic gift in summer 2025 to accelerate the exchange’s mission and collaboration model. He also serves on the board of BioFlorida and regularly represents Mayo Clinic in national and international innovation forums and partnerships. Across his roles, Dr. Bruce focuses on removing barriers to execution, building alignment across stakeholders, and advancing inventions that can be licensed or optioned to extend impact beyond Mayo Clinic.
Becky Buchen. Senior Vice President for Innovation and Transformation at OSF HealthCare (Peoria, Ill.). Under Ms. Buchen’s leadership, OSF Innovation has developed novel models of care, including the launch of a rapid intake approach at the OSF HealthCare Cancer Institute, enhancing patient care and streamlining access to treatment. She played a pivotal role in unveiling the 55-plus primary care service and implementing at-home monitoring for young children with viral respiratory illnesses. Ms. Buchen’s collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has resulted in groundbreaking joint research to detect rare diseases, further establishing OSF’s role in healthcare transformation. OSF Innovation is also at the forefront of AI in healthcare, advancing technologies like CliniPane, an AI-driven tool that interfaces with EHR to provide clinicians with critical patient information. The tool offers a highly customizable display of data, streamlining clinician workflows. OSF Innovation also has fostered partnerships with four universities, resulting in funded research projects and matches between employees and academic collaborators. Innovation’s trailblazer challenge has also empowered employees to bring their ideas to life, with one significant outcome being OpenSurge, a new company spun off from OSF Innovation that aims to reduce surgery cancellations. Ms. Buchen’s leadership has contributed over $100 million in economic activity and created more than 600 full-time jobs over the past decade.
Ryan M. Cameron, EdD. Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Innovation Officer at Children’s Nebraska (Omaha, Neb.). Dr. Cameron is executive vice president and chief information and innovation officer at Children’s Nebraska, where he leads a people-first innovation strategy that integrates technology, culture and clinical impact. He spearheaded development of the Mammel Innovation Center, including the region’s first 510(k)-compliant pediatric 3D printing and manufacturing hub, completed in less than two years. Under his leadership, the organization launched “Project Glow,” a first-of-its-kind telemedicine initiative using volumetric holographic communication to expand pediatric behavioral health access in rural Nebraska. He has positioned Children’s Nebraska as a Midwest leader in digital health, virtual reality and advanced manufacturing through strategic partnerships and emerging technologies. Mr. Cameron emphasizes making innovation accessible to every role by empowering staff through workshops, hackathons and continuous learning. His work has been recognized by the AIM Institute as “Innovator of the Year” in 2021 and 2022, and the Globee “Gold Business Award” for innovation in software development.
Anthony Chang, MD. Chief Intelligence and Innovation Officer for Children’s Hospital of Orange County (Calif.). Dr. Chang founded the Sharon Disney Lund Medical Intelligence, Information, Investigation and Innovation Institute at Children’s Hospital of Orange County with the goal of transforming pediatric care. Now in its 11th year, the institute has become a leader in medical intelligence and innovation across children’s hospitals worldwide. Dr. Chang pioneered one of the first AI programs based in a children’s hospital and developed a distinctive medical intelligence and innovation internship program aimed at inspiring future generations of pediatricians and healthcare professionals. He also founded the International Society for Pediatric Innovation, which now includes over 24 member children’s hospitals. A dedicated advocate for knowledge sharing, education and collaboration, Dr. Chang has established multiple professional societies, including AIMed, Medical Intelligence Society and American Board of AI in Medicine. Most recently, he launched the Alliance of Centers of AI in Medicine and the Pediatric Alliance of AI Centers in Medicine, uniting over 100 centers to meet monthly to advance AI in clinical care. Dr. Chang is also the author of Artificial Intelligence and Human Cognition in Clinical Medicine and Healthcare.
Chris Coburn. Chief Innovation Officer at Mass General Brigham (Boston). As chief innovation officer at Mass General Brigham, Mr. Coburn leads more than 140 teammates in investments, company creation, innovation management, industry collaborations and licensing. He is charged with handling a venture fund of approximately $500 million. Prior, during his 13-year tenure as founding director at Cleveland Clinic Innovations, Cleveland Clinic spun off 57 companies that raised over $700 million in equity financing. Mr. Coburn also serves on several boards and is the founder of World Medical Innovation Forum.
Mark Coticchia. Vice President of Corporate Innovation at Baptist Health South Florida (Coral Gables, Fla.). Mr. Coticchia is vice president of corporate innovation at Baptist Health South Florida, where he has built a high-velocity, process-driven innovation engine spanning technology transfer, commercialization and external codevelopment. Since joining in 2019, he converted innovation from a pilot effort into an operating business unit and established the system’s first intellectual property policy, among the most generous royalty-sharing agreements in U.S. hospitals. He launched an innovation fund, executed major codevelopment collaborations with partners including Philips and Fujitsu, and generated Baptist Health’s first commercial intellectual property licenses and revenues within 18 months. Under his leadership, the Knight Foundation Fellowship in Healthcare Technology Innovation, which was funded through the largest-ever Knight Foundation grant to a healthcare institution, has trained more than 145 participants, with nearly 150 Knight fellows to date. Outcomes include nearly 50 license deals and codevelopment collaborations, millions of dollars in cumulative licensing revenue, and 36 patents and patents pending, alongside Baptist Health’s first startup company and first international know-how license. Mr. Coticchia also led the development of HealthChain, an internally developed AI-enabled supply chain platform now used by other health systems to improve procure-to-pay performance, vendor relations and product availability.
Myra Davis. Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Innovation Officer for Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston). Ms. Davis serves as executive vice president, chief information and innovation officer at Texas Children’s Hospital. This entails oversight of an IT team that drives digital transformation and innovation initiatives. She has implemented enterprise resource planning solutions, launched a virtual care clinic and developed an online scheduling strategy, improving operational efficiency and patient access. Ms. Davis’s team also introduced intelligent process automation to optimize resources. In addition, she and her team have created a robust data governance and analytic center of excellence that supports and trains the organization to use data. Ms. Davis has built a team that supports the navigation and facilitation of innovation ideas across the hospital, including with its academic partner Baylor College of Medicine, technology startups and other outside organizations.
Warren D’Souza, PhD. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at University of Maryland Medical System (Baltimore). Dr. D’Souza is chief innovation officer at the University of Maryland Medical System, where he leads enterprise data and analytics, machine learning and AI, research informatics and clinical research functions. He oversees iHarbor, the system’s innovation center focused on improving clinical operations, advancing research and commercializing internally developed technologies. Dr. D’Souza also serves as co-director of the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing and the informatics core within the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. Previously, he led the expansion of clinical, research and education programs as chief of medical physics, including the opening of the Maryland Proton Treatment Center and growth in extramural funding. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and served as principal investigator on multiple federally funded and industry-sponsored grants. Dr. D’Souza holds more than a dozen U.S. patents and has led the development of clinical technologies that have progressed to commercialization.
Nicholas Gavin, MD. Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Mount Sinai Health System (New York City). Dr. Gavin is chief clinical innovation officer at Mount Sinai Health System, where he combines clinical practice and digital strategy to improve access, quality and operational efficiency. He led a redesign of Mount Sinai’s digital front door to create a more seamless patient entry point into care. His work included launching a digital triage tool to guide patients to the appropriate level of care, a virtual on-demand clinic to expand timely access and an asynchronous acute care platform to reduce scheduling barriers. Dr. Gavin is known for his technical fluency and ability to translate ideas into scalable solutions by aligning clinicians, technologists and administrators around shared goals. He is also recognized for inclusive, collaborative leadership that accelerates testing, refinement and adoption of new care models.
Ingrid Gerbino, MD. Chief Innovation Officer for Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (Tacoma, Wash.). Dr. Gerbino leads the innovation strategy at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and oversees the Virginia Mason Institute and Kaizen Promotion Office. A practicing primary care physician and chief of primary care since 2016, she has driven improvements in care by applying her expertise in the Virginia Mason production system, training leaders in its principles since the 2021 merger with CHI Franciscan. Dr. Gerbino’s leadership has helped reduce hospital sepsis recognition time by 7.5 hours at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle and increased patient access via additional appointment slots at St. Anne Hospital in Burien, Wash. With over 25 years at the health system, she has been influencing clinical and administrative practice at Virginia Mason since 1995.
Elizabeth Hagerman, PhD. Chief Innovation Officer at UW Health (Madison, Wis.). Dr. Hagerman is chief innovation officer at UW Health and executive director of the Isthmus Project, an innovation initiative supporting the commercialization of healthcare solutions developed with or within UW Health and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She leads operations for the Isthmus Project, which has partnered with more than 200 innovators across 34 specialties and 54 subspecialties. Since joining in late 2019, Dr. Hagerman has helped build the program’s operational structure and define its value proposition as an innovation hub embedded within an academic health system. Her team provides mentorship ranging from foundational guidance on intellectual property and market assessment to multi-month engagements that use milestone-based stage gates to mitigate technical and business risk. Dr. Hagerman brings experience across biotechnology, product development and commercialization, including prior leadership roles at Conexus Indiana and Rose-Hulman Ventures. She was recognized as one of the “Top Women in Tech” honorees by Purpose Jobs in 2024 and was named a 2018 “40 Under 40” by the Indianapolis Business Journal.
Andro Herrera-Mendoza. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at PAM Health (Enola, Pa.). Mr. Herrera-Mendoza is senior vice president and chief innovation officer at PAM Health, where he aligns innovation with strategic growth, clinical excellence and value-based care across post-acute and specialty services. He has expanded PAM Health’s ambulatory portfolio to include advanced wound care, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, infusion services and outpatient therapy, strengthening continuity of care and reducing avoidable readmissions. A signature initiative under his leadership is the systemwide advanced wound care and limb preservation program, built on multidisciplinary teams, standardized protocols and early vascular assessment to prevent avoidable amputations and reduce long-term cost. He is also spearheading the development of integrated medical plazas, functional multi-service hubs designed to extend coordinated care into surrounding communities and provide a replicable growth model across markets. Mr. Herrera-Mendoza established an enterprise innovation pipeline to vet and scale emerging technologies, partnerships and mergers and acquisitions opportunities that expand PAM Health’s capabilities across the continuum. He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and serves as chair of the Texas Brain Injury Advisory Council.
David Higginson. Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Phoenix Children’s (Phoenix). Mr. Higginson is executive vice president and chief innovation officer at Phoenix Children’s, where he has helped transform the organization into a nationally ranked pediatric health system while maintaining or reducing costs. Under his leadership, Phoenix Children’s has more than tripled in size over the past decade and is on track to become the nation’s fourth-largest pediatric health system. He has led the development of enterprisewide digital solutions, including predictive surveillance tools, real-time clinical decision support dashboards and remote monitoring applications supporting complex pediatric conditions. Mr. Higginson oversaw creation of an enterprise data lake integrating data from nearly 70 systems, enabling thousands of clinicians to access actionable insights across care settings. His partnerships with organizations such as Amazon and Intel have expanded behavioral health access, supported suicide prevention efforts and enabled secure, cost-efficient bedside AI experimentation.
Mark Kandrysawtz. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at WellSpan Health (York, Pa.). Mr. Kandrysawtz is senior vice president and chief innovation officer at WellSpan Health, where he leads organizational research and development, enterprise digital health and innovation ventures to modernize care delivery and patient engagement. Under his leadership, WellSpan became the first Epic EHR-enabled organization to earn Epic’s “Five Diamonds” recognition for its patient portal, MyWellSpan. 70% of customers are now highly digitally engaged. He helped unify the system’s public website and patient portal to create a more seamless digital front door, driving increased new account creation within two months of implementation. Mr. Kandrysawtz has advanced digital pathways that expand access and reduce friction, including virtual care expansion during the Covid-19 pandemic, digital access to contraceptives and automated preventive care reminders. He has also led work to enhance clinician productivity using natural-language-powered documentation tools and to advance AI-driven diagnostics and therapeutics through strategic partnerships. WellSpan has also collaborated with Hippocratic AI, including a multilingual, phone-based assistant that has surpassed 1 million autonomous agentic AI interactions to support outreach, procedure readiness and community health needs assessments.
Anthony Keck. Executive Vice President for System Innovation and Chief Population Health Officer at Ballad Health (Johnson City, Tenn.). Mr. Keck oversees system strategy, analytics and value-based services, as well as marketing and communications, government affairs, the Ballad Health Innovation Center, the Ballad Health Foundation and community health programs. He leads enterprisewide innovation and population health efforts designed to align strategy, data and community impact across Ballad Health’s multi-state footprint. Prior to joining Ballad Health, Mr. Keck served as director of Health and Human Services for South Carolina, where he led Medicaid and public health strategy, and previously directed public health and behavioral health responses in Louisiana. His private-sector experience includes innovation work in both operational and policy expertise. Mr. Keck helped establish the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum following Hurricane Katrina and has served on the board of the National Association of Medicaid Directors and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Governance and Financing of Graduate Medical Education. He currently chairs the board of the Virginia Center for Health Innovation.
Alexander Khalessi, MD, MBA. Chief Innovation Officer at UC San Diego Health (San Diego). Dr. Khalessi was appointed chief innovation officer of UC San Diego Health in December 2025 and also serves as interim assistant vice chancellor for health sciences innovation and AI at UC San Diego. In this dual role, he shapes systemwide innovation strategy and leads the integration of emerging technologies, including AI, across the health system and academic enterprise. He directs enterprise technology deployment, oversees surgical and procedural innovation, and aligns capital and operational priorities to advance digital transformation and AI readiness. Dr. Khalessi partners closely with information services and the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Center for Health Innovation to accelerate initiatives that enhance clinician support, patient safety, operational efficiency and access to care. A professor of neurological surgery, radiology and neurosciences at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, he holds the Don and Karen Cohn Chancellor’s Endowed Chair of Neurological Surgery. He has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and served as principal or co-investigator on more than 25 clinical trials.
Harlan Levine, MD. President of Health Innovation and Policy at City of Hope (Duarte, Calif.). Dr. Levine is president of health innovation and policy at City of Hope, where he leads strategy, innovation and growth alongside payer strategy, government affairs and drug commercialization. Over the past decade, his leadership helped City of Hope expand from two small satellite practices into a national system serving approximately 160,000 patients annually. He founded and serves as chairman of AccessHope, a City of Hope spinoff that delivers specialized cancer expertise as an employer-sponsored telehealth benefit. AccessHope now serves 7 million members through more than 400 organizations, including more than 60 Fortune 500 companies, and uses AI-enabled tools to identify complex cases and proactively support treating physicians. Dr. Levine also launched the “Cancer Care Is Different” coalition, which has pursued policy changes to expand access for underserved patients, including supporting passage of a cancer patients bill of rights resolution and the California Cancer Care Equity Act to expand Medi-Cal beneficiaries’ access to specialized cancer centers. In the past year, he expanded coalition efforts with an Illinois initiative that passed an Illinois cancer patients bill of rights and launched a national coalition focused on federal policy reform to broaden access to optimal cancer care.
Richard Milani, MD. Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Sutter Health (Sacramento, Calif.). Dr. Milani is chief clinical innovation officer at Sutter Health, where he leads systemwide efforts to deploy digital health, AI and predictive analytics at scale. He spearheaded the launch of Sutter Sync, a digital care program that enables patients with chronic conditions to transmit real-time data directly into the EHR using connected medical devices. The program supports home-based management of hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes and is expanding to additional populations, including Medicare beneficiaries and pregnant patients. Dr. Milani also played a key role in establishing Sutter’s Innovation Center, creating a hub for collaboration among clinicians, technologists and industry partners. His work has advanced AI-enabled early cancer detection, real-time stroke triage and prevention of in-hospital cardiac arrests. Across these initiatives, he has prioritized reducing clinician burden through automation of documentation and patient communications.
Kristen Murtos. Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer at Endeavor Health (Evanston, Ill.). Ms. Murtos is chief innovation and transformation officer at Endeavor Health, where she oversees system strategy, innovation, community impact and government relations. She has led the establishment of the nation’s largest primary care-embedded clinical genomics program and the Endeavor Health Community Investment Fund. Under her leadership, Endeavor has leveraged data, technology and AI to personalize care delivery, expand access and improve team performance. Ms. Murtos previously served as chief administrative and strategy officer at NorthShore University HealthSystem, where she helped drive growth through strategic partnerships and health system integration. She also founded the system’s first transformation management office, supporting enterprise execution across quality, financial and workforce priorities. Earlier in her career, she led a $100 million hospital campus transformation that contributed to the development of a nationally ranked orthopedic and spine institute.
Jason Naidich, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Learning and Innovation Officer at Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.). Dr. Naidich is senior vice president and chief learning and innovation officer at Northwell Health, where he leads the Center for Learning and Innovation and systemwide programs that develop leaders, strengthen safety and advance workforce readiness. In 2025, he helped create the Northwell School of Health Sciences, which opened in September with an inaugural class of approximately 240 students. The school was supported by a $25 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies and built on Northwell’s partnership with the New York City Board of Education to prepare students for healthcare careers. Its curriculum focuses on nursing, medical assistant training, mental and behavioral health and management, while also offering college credits, certifications and licensing exam preparation. Dr. Naidich also led Northwell’s 2025 “Innovation Challenge,” awarding a total of $1.3 million to three employee-led projects spanning operating room connected video and extended reality streaming, AI-enabled pediatric sleep apnea detection using home sound recordings, and an all-in-one radiology platform for AI insights and continuous diagnostic improvement. Since the challenge launched in 2017, Northwell has funded various projects, with hundreds of employees submitting ideas through the program.
Peter Najjar, MD. Vice President of Clinical Innovation for Johns Hopkins Health System (Baltimore). Dr. Najjar is vice president of clinical innovation for Johns Hopkins Health System and an assistant professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he bridges clinical practice, operational leadership and commercialization to scale innovation beyond pilots. He built systemwide patient safety, operational excellence and analytics structures, including the nation’s largest centralized clinical registry abstraction core. Dr. Najjar has partnered with engineering teams to introduce large language models into registry abstraction, using internally developed AI tools to accelerate abstraction and improve data quality. He helped spin out Safetower, a Johns Hopkins subsidiary that uses AI-enabled tools to strengthen harm-event reporting and response in frontline practice. He also led development of Hopkins Ambient Learning and Optimization, an ambient intelligence platform integrating video, audio and sensors to improve teamwork, reduce error and generate research-grade data streams. As a practicing colorectal surgeon focused on complex and robotic procedures, Dr. Najjar models adoption in clinical workflows while co-directing a physician-executive fellowship. He has also earned the “Frederic E. Eckhauser Award” for resident mentorship.
Todd Ponsky, MD. Chief Innovation Officer for Cincinnati Children’s. Dr. Ponsky, Cincinnati Children’s first ever chief innovation officer, has redefined innovation at the system by creating a structured approach to accelerate growth in academic medical innovation. He cultivated a culture of creativity by honoring over 50 innovators, introducing innovation learning modules and hosting the first clinical innovation incubator. Under his leadership, the organization has partnered with a major venture capital firm and developed a corporate venture arm, enabling product validation, co-development and investments aligned with strategic goals. With over 140 published manuscripts, three textbooks and 230 international lectures, Dr. Ponsky is a renowned educator and speaker on minimally invasive pediatric surgery and the intersection of innovation and education.
Sandra Powell-Elliott. Vice President and Chief Innovation and Commercialization Officer at Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.). Ms. Powell-Elliott is vice president and chief innovation and commercialization officer at Hackensack Meridian Health, where she advances internal innovation culture and external commercialization across precision medicine, devices, products, business models and operational improvement. She has spearheaded the development of Hackensack Meridian’s first spin-out company, Evaluate Diagnostics, and supports innovation activity tied to the medical school and the system’s center for discovery and innovation. Ms. Powell-Elliott has scaled team-member-driven innovation through programs such as the Bear’s Den Innovation Challenge and networkwide challenges that have evaluated more than 400 submissions over three years, including a 2022 safety challenge engaging the system’s 36,000 team members. She helped launch Emerge in partnership with the State of New Jersey to accelerate early-stage technologies into U.S. healthcare delivery, beginning with an Ireland-focused cohort in 2024 and expanding in 2025 to more than 20 countries. Her portfolio also includes innovation-intensive programs targeting pediatrics, mental health, women’s health and pharmacy practice, alongside initiatives such as a genomic reference lab collaboration and ambulatory imaging joint ventures.
Lisa Prasad. Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of Henry Ford Health System (Detroit). Ms. Prasad joined the Henry Ford Health System in 2013 as a managing director and transitioned into the vice president and chief innovation officer in 2020. With a passion for high quality, accessible healthcare and higher education, she’s responsible for leading technology development, corporate business and product development. She guides innovation, early-stage partnerships, and commercialization strategies and ventures.
Neil Ray, MD. Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at Duke Health Integrated Practice (Durham, N.C.). Dr. Ray is chief innovation and technology officer at Duke University Health System, where he applies clinical, financial and informatics expertise to build enterprise platforms with measurable return on investment. He created the “Finance, Analytics, Strategy Tool” platform to unify hospital and professional billing data, identifying coding gaps, surfacing millions in revenue opportunity and flagging payer underpayments for escalation and recovery. The program’s scalability was validated through licensing to LeanTaaS, a healthcare company exceeding $1 billion in value. Dr. Ray has also led conversational AI integrated with Epic to reduce call volumes and generate operational cost savings. He implemented real-time patient feedback capabilities to improve response rates and accelerate service recovery while proactively addressing concerns. Across these initiatives, he evaluates innovation by impact on clinician workload, patient outcomes and the organization’s financial sustainability.
Richard Roth. Chief Strategic Innovation Officer at CommonSpirit Health (Chicago). Mr. Roth is chief strategic innovation officer at CommonSpirit Health, where he has led systemwide innovation for more than a decade with an emphasis on collaboration and scalable adoption. Since 2020, he has guided development of a behavioral health strategy spanning the continuum from outpatient through acute care, including clear role delineation between internal providers and external partners. Under this model, CommonSpirit established a centralized behavioral health call center to assess and triage patients into appropriate services, including collaborative care in primary care and programs addressing serious mental illness, eating disorders and acute psychiatric care. Mr. Roth helped expand an integrated behavioral health partnership with Concert Health that supported more than 8,900 patients across 52 sites and delivered Patient Health Questionnaire-9 clinical improvement in approximately 50% of patients. He has also driven broader enterprise use of generative AI, expanding from chat and call center workflows into inpatient, emergency department and supply chain operations. The AI real-time communication partnership has served 2.7 million patients, delivering double-digit patient experience gains and reductions in “left without being seen,” alongside additional AI-enabled supply chain savings.
Roberta Schwartz. Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer for Houston Methodist. Ms. Schwartz, executive vice president and chief innovation officer at Houston Methodist, leads the center for innovation and the system’s internal innovation leadership committee, aiming to drive digital health advancements across the system’s eight hospitals and the forthcoming “hospital of the future,” Houston Methodist Cypress (Texas) Hospital. She has cultivated a dual-role team structure, integrating innovation across disciplines like IT, clinical care and marketing. Her leadership has earned Houston Methodist recognition from Fortune as one of the most innovative health systems for 2024 and Newsweek as one of the world’s best smart hospitals for 2025. Ms. Schwartz’s proactive investments in digital health positioned the hospital to excel during the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting the community and serving as a national leader. She has also introduced pivotal roles, including a chief AI officer, to strengthen future innovation. She was honored as a 2023 “Women Who Mean Business” honoree by the Houston Business Journal. Outside of her executive role, she drew on her own experience as a cancer survivor to co-found the “Young Survival Coalition” nonprofit for young adults living with breast cancer.
Bill Sheahan. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at MedStar Health (Columbia, Md.). Mr. Sheahan is senior vice president and chief innovation officer at MedStar Health and executive director of the MedStar Institute for Innovation, leading a more than 200-member team driving systemwide transformation. He oversees enterprise innovation for a $8.3 billion, nonprofit system with more than 300 care locations, including 10 hospitals, with priorities spanning the future of acute care and the future of work through AI and automation. In fiscal year 2025, his teams supported 1.4 million online learning completions across 53,500 unique learners and delivered 30,000 associate support touchpoints through the MedStar Health Center for Wellbeing. Mr. Sheahan expanded automation and AI capabilities, building and maintaining 34 automations that saved nearly 80,000 hours and scaling a voice AI initiative to 2,000 providers across 50 specialties supporting 350,000 ambulatory visits. He also advanced virtual care models, including more than 500,000 remote visual monitoring hours for roughly 6,000 patients across all 10 hospitals and virtual nursing programs. This initiative is estimated to return 12,000 hours to bedside nurses. Under his leadership, MedStar supported 520,000 telehealth encounters in fiscal year 2025, up 14% year over year, surpassed 1,000 eConsults across more than 20 specialties, and continued to expand strategic partnerships, ventures and commercialization activity.
Dan Shoenthal. Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of Innovation at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston). Mr. Shoenthal is chief innovation officer and vice president of innovation at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he leads enterprise efforts to design and scale human-centered healthcare experiences. He has established a structured innovation framework that engages experts across the institution and aligns teams around patient and clinician needs. Under his leadership, MD Anderson has delivered measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, patient access, and institutional utilization and retention strategies. Mr. Shoenthal has played a key role in expanding virtual care through systemwide initiatives that improved patient experience, quality and safety. He also supports device innovation across the organization, working closely with nursing leaders and frontline teams to optimize smart hospital capabilities. His work has helped embed purposeful innovation as a core operational discipline across the cancer center.
Rasu Shrestha, MD. Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation and Commercialization Officer at Advocate Health (Charlotte, N.C.). Dr. Shrestha is executive vice president, chief innovation and commercialization officer at Advocate Health, where he leads innovation strategy, commercialization and ecosystem partnerships designed to be replicable across health systems. He has been instrumental in developing the system’s innovation districts, including The Pearl in Charlotte, a public-private partnership anchored by Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health and home to the Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Charlotte campus, which welcomed its first class in July 2025. The district is projected to generate more than 5,500 on-site jobs and more than 11,500 total regional jobs over 15 years, positioning it as both a healthcare innovation engine and an economic catalyst. Dr. Shrestha also supported strategic collaborations that established IRCAD North America at The Pearl. He also expanded technology integration and experiential education partnerships with organizations such as Medtronic and Boston Scientific. He oversees the Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem, N.C. and is leading development of IQ Phase II to expand space and programming for startups, research and education. Dr. Shrestha has been named to the Charlotte Business Journal’s “Power 100 Innovators” and has helped Advocate Health earn placement on Fortune’s “Most Innovative Companies” for three consecutive years.
Barry Stein, MD. Chief Clinical Innovation Officer at Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare. Dr. Stein is chief clinical innovation officer at Hartford HealthCare, where he has spent two decades translating opportunities at the intersection of care delivery and transformative technology into scalable clinical and operational impact. He has built a multi-stakeholder innovation ecosystem spanning academic institutions, government and corporate partners, venture capital and collaborations with MIT to accelerate ideas from research into bedside practice. In 2024, Dr. Stein and colleagues launched a center for AI innovation in healthcare to advance AI use in a safe and trustworthy manner across access, affordability, equity, quality and safety priorities. The system undertook a nine-plus-year foundation-building effort that includes governance to reduce patient harm risk, immersive education across functions and a disciplined methodology to integrate and scale AI into clinical practice. Dr. Stein also co-founded Holistic Hospital Optimization in 2022 with MIT Sloan collaborators to develop practice models that improve length of stay and optimize complex nursing schedules. More than 200 Hartford HealthCare clinicians and operational leaders are engaged alongside 20-plus PhD students and faculty from institutions including MIT and Oxford University to advance research, startup partnerships and a multimodal data liquidity layer.
David Sylvan. Chief Strategy, Innovation and Marketing Officer at University Hospitals (Cleveland). Mr. Sylvan is chief strategy, innovation and marketing officer at University Hospitals, where he aligns enterprise strategy, commercialization, partnerships and marketing to drive measurable transformation. He leads UH Ventures and created the system’s office of strategy and innovation to move from problem identification through solution implementation and codify disruptive goals across clinical departments. Under his leadership, UH launched a partnership with Hippocratic AI to deploy a conversational AI agent to enhance patient engagement and reduce care gaps, with an initial use case supporting pharmacists’ outreach through UH Meds. Over five years, UH staff have generated more than 450 invention disclosures supported by more than 640 patents and 120-plus commercialization agreements, while UH Ventures has built a portfolio of 20-plus innovation-driven companies and executed 40-plus external collaborations. In early 2025, UH received a $1 million Ohio Department of Development Technology Validation and Start-up Fund grant, matched by UH to create a $2 million fund managed by UH Ventures to advance promising intellectual property. Mr. Sylvan also oversees innovation platforms such as SportsLand, which in 2025 drew 445-plus attendees, 30-plus speakers and 18-plus sponsors, generated more than $80,000 in revenue and produced a net profit of $32,000.
Mary Tolikas, PhD. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston). Since 2022, Dr. Tolikas has held the senior vice president and chief innovation officer role at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She leads the Belfer Office for Dana-Farber Innovations, where she transforms the institute’s discoveries into real-world impact and oversees Binney Street Capital, Dana-Farber’s venture fund. With more than 20 years of experience building technology-based organizations, Dr. Tolikas ensures that advances made in Dana-Farber’s laboratories move effectively into the clinic, thus accelerating the pace at which new therapies reach patients worldwide. In the past three years, Dana-Farber executed over 200 licensing agreements in cancer therapeutics and diagnostics, forging partnerships with industry and startups to deliver breakthroughs to patients. Her work is central to Dana-Farber’s strategy of enabling innovation, building partnerships and creating pathways that directly translate research breakthroughs into patient benefit. Prior to joining Dana-Farber, Dr. Tolikas was CEO of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, where she advanced neurotechnology development and commercialization. She also contributes to advisory boards and committees including CancerX, BIH Center for Regenerative Therapies in Berlin, and Institut Curie in Paris.
David Twitchell, PharmD. Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Medical Center Health System. Mr. Twitchell is chief innovation officer at Boston Medical Center Health System, where he aligns operational strategy, equity and financial sustainability to expand access and improve outcomes. He redesigned inpatient operations and strengthened supply chain management, generating savings while improving care delivery performance. Mr. Twitchell helped grow pharmacy education and workforce pipelines by expanding training from fewer than 10 pharmacy students annually to nearly 200 and increasing residency positions from six to 13. He also spearheaded the buildout of specialty, mail order and hospital-based pharmacy services, growing revenue from $20 million to more than $1.1 billion annually while improving access to therapies for tens of thousands of patients, including in cancer and HIV care. He founded Clearway Health, a pharmacy solutions accelerator that has secured partnerships with 10 hospitals and health centers and supported complex access pathways for high-cost gene therapies. Mr. Twitchell additionally restructured pharmacy benefits operations, moving to a transparent pass-through pharmacy benefit manager model that saved more than $50 million in its first year across more than 700,000 health plan members in two states.
D. Geoffrey Vince, PhD. Chief of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and Department Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Vince is chief of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and chair of biomedical engineering at Cleveland Clinic, where he has led enterprise commercialization strategy since 2021. In 2024, Cleveland Clinic Innovations issued 144 patents, secured 53 new licensing deals and supported 263 invention disclosures, representing year-over-year increases across each metric. He strengthened the organization’s invention-to-license conversion rate, increasing it from 19% in 2021 to 26% in 2024 through more strategic support for inventors and tighter alignment to market needs. Under his leadership, the portfolio has diversified beyond its historically device-heavy focus to include 27% digital health and 23% therapeutics and diagnostics. Dr. Vince also expanded the organization’s global innovation footprint by integrating efforts across Cleveland Clinic London and Cleveland Clinic Canada while advancing scaling pathways connected to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. Cleveland Clinic has launched over 100 startups.
Jerry Vuchak. Former Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Innovation Officer at Children’s Nebraska (Omaha). In his multifaceted role as executive vice president and chief information and innovation officer, Mr. Vuchak took outcome-based risks and challenged existing processes, technologies and methods, ensuring that Children’s Nebraska continued to evolve. He guided the hospital’s launch of customized patient-facing applications, including digital wayfinding, digital concierge bedside services, self-scheduling and telehealth resources at Children’s. Thanks to his leadership, the hospital became the only pediatric hospital in the Metaverse. He was also instrumental in spearheading the launch of AdaptCare, a mobile app that supports the continuity of care for children with complex medical needs.
Chris Waugh. Chief Innovation Officer at Sutter Health (Sacramento, Calif.). Mr. Waugh is chief innovation officer at Sutter Health, where he leads human-centered innovation initiatives serving more than 3.5 million patients. He helped drive the creation of Sutter’s Innovation Center, fostering collaboration with clinicians, entrepreneurs and technology partners to scale AI-enabled and digitally enabled care models. Mr. Waugh also launched Sutter’s systemwide Innovation Challenge, engaging more than 5,000 employees and generating nearly 250 ideas, including a funded pilot for smartphone-based cognitive screening in neuroscience care. He has led partnerships with organizations such as Aidoc, GE HealthCare and Abridge to deploy tools that improve diagnostics and reduce clinician burnout. Under his leadership, Sutter Health has been recognized by Fast Company as a top-five “best workplace for innovators.” His portfolio includes the launch of Scout by Sutter Health, an award-winning digital mental health platform for teens and young adults.
Brian Weirich, DHA, MSN, RN. Chief Nurse Innovation Officer for Bon Secours Mercy Health (Cincinnati). Dr. Weirich Weirich is the chief nurse innovation officer at Bon Secours Mercy Health, where he integrates technology and innovation to improve healthcare delivery. At Phoenix-based Banner Health, he implemented a virtual nursing program that enhanced staff retention, patient experience and care quality while reducing length of stay. His collaboration with a startup at Indianapolis-based IU Health led to a real-time emergency department status system, reducing the amount of patients leaving without being seen from over 5% to less than 1%. His partnership with Purdue University’s hospitality program redesigned clinical environments and improved patient experience scores while engaging the next generation of healthcare professionals. His hands-on leadership is highlighted by his 13-week medical-surgical nursing role, where he gained firsthand insights into the challenges nurses face and developed tailored solutions to enhance workflow and reduce burnout.
Tom Wilton. Senior Vice President of Innovation Ventures for Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Mr. Wilton joined CHOP in 2025 after a 25-year career spanning the pharmaceutical, biotech and academic sectors, and has been instrumental in establishing a new team focused on driving innovation and commercialization across the enterprise. From building capabilities in entrepreneurship, to establishing new business models and strategic collaborations with industry, the Innovation Ventures team maximizes the potential impact that CHOP innovations have on child health globally. Throughout his career, Mr. Wilton has focused on building high-performing teams that operate at the cutting edge of science, raising over $500 million in capital to advance multiple first-in-kind treatments for rare diseases and cancer into the clinic. He fosters a culture of innovation, empowering staff to develop and implement transformative ideas.
Richard Zane, MD. Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at UCHealth (Aurora, Colo.). Dr. Zane serves as chief medical officer and chief innovation officer of UCHealth, a $9 billion nonprofit health system with more than 35,000 employees, where he oversees clinical, quality and safety programs across the enterprise. He works closely with operational leaders, the University of Colorado School of Medicine and UCHealth Medical Group to advance care delivery and embed innovation into systemwide practice. UCHealth includes 14 hospitals, including the state’s only academic medical center, and more than 2,500 inpatient beds and over 200 clinic locations spanning Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska. Prior to assuming the CMO role, Dr. Zane was the George B. Boedecker, Jr. and Boedecker Foundation Professor and Chair of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He joined UCHealth in 2012 after serving as associate professor and vice chair of emergency medicine at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Mark Zhang. Chief Innovation Officer at Veterans Health Administration (Washington, D.C.). Mr. Zhang is chief innovation officer at the Veterans Health Administration, where he oversees the office of healthcare innovation and learning, the central entity coordinating innovation across 170 medical centers and more than 400,000 staff. In this role, he leads national efforts to scale innovative practices that improve care delivery for veterans across the country. Prior to joining VHA, he led digital innovation initiatives at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Mr. Zhang is the founder and first president of the American Medical Informatics Association Clinical Informatics Fellows organization, supporting the development of informatics leaders nationwide. He also founded and serves as president of the American Medical Extended Reality Association and co-founded the Journal of Medical Extended Reality.
At Becker's 4th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, taking place November 2–5 in Chicago, more than 1,500 hospital and health system executives tackle decisions that determine whether organizations thrive or merely survive: protecting margins under cost pressure, choosing where to grow, renegotiating payer relationships, stabilizing the workforce and proving real ROI on technology. This is where leaders work through them together, face-to-face. Apply for complimentary registration now.