John D’Angelo, MD, takes the reins as CEO of Northwell Health Oct. 1 — a role he never chased, but one that ultimately found him.
Dr. D’Angelo succeeds Michael Dowling, the well-known healthcare leader whose 24-year tenure transformed the New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based system into an integrated system with 28 hospitals, more than 1,000 outpatient facilities, a research enterprise, a medical school and over 104,000 employees across New York and Connecticut.
Dr. D’Angelo’s career at Northwell began not with a boardroom title in mind, but in the controlled chaos of emergency departments. That trajectory, from physician to operational leader to system CEO, says as much about the leader himself as the organization he now leads.
“I didn’t plan any of this,” he said. “I’ve been scrappy my whole career. I’ve always been a driver of change and innovation — whether in data, technology, or care delivery — and one thing just led to another. I’ve always been trying to challenge how we do things better.”
Born in the Bronx and raised on Long Island from his early teens, Dr. D’Angelo comes from a large, working-class family. He pursued medicine not through grand design but by following curiosity and grit. After completing his emergency medicine residency in Pennsylvania and taking his first job in Massachusetts, he worked a lot of extra shifts — just one weekend off per month — to support his growing family and pay down student loans.
He returned to Long Island in the late 1990s and began his first attending role at Glen Cove Hospital, then part of the North Shore-LIJ Health System, the precursor to Northwell. Early on, the Glen Cove emergency department drew notice for improvements in patient flow and experience, sustaining some of the best results in the country over multiple years. When Mr. Dowling declared sepsis the organization’s top quality priority, Dr. D’Angelo co-led Northwell’s response with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, cutting the mortality systemwide in half within three years and earning a John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award in 2015 for the progress.
The project proved pivotal and reinforced a theme of his career: constant reinvention. “Even though I’ve been with Northwell for 25 years, I’m not unlike a lot of folks in Northwell that I’ve had five or six different careers during that time.”
Dr. D’Angelo joined Northwell’s inaugural physician leadership development program and, not long after, was tapped to lead emergency medicine for the entire system. From there, the scope of his responsibilities grew — from emergency medicine leadership to systemwide quality projects, technology rollouts and ultimately to managing Northwell’s largest regional market. Some of these roles came in rapid succession, others during moments of crisis, such as COVID-19, when Dr. D’Angelo was tapped to run operations across the entire health system as the first wave hit New York.
“Michael came to me and said, ‘John, all those things you just did to help us navigate the first wave, we need to do that going forward on a normal day to day,'” recalls Dr. D’Angelo. That charge became Integrated Operations, a division built to hardwire the agility of crisis response into everyday practice. The work broadened Dr. D’Angelo’s systemwide view — how clinical realities collide with operational execution — and primed him to later run Northwell’s Central Region, a six-hospital market with 24,000 employees and 300 outpatient sites.
In May, the Northwell board announced Dr. D’Angelo would succeed Mr. Dowling, with the two rolling out a monthslong transition. Mr. Dowling, who became president and CEO of the then North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in late 2001, moves to CEO emeritus and will continue advancing key public health initiatives while focusing on teaching and writing. Under his leadership, Northwell grew through more than 20 mergers into New York’s largest private employer, caring for over 2 million people annually.
Dr. D’Angelo said he never set out to be CEO. “If you asked me 10 years ago, if you made it to a pinnacle of your career, I probably would’ve told you that maybe someday I would be a COO,” he noted.
But careers often defy plans. Today, a blend of clinical experience, operational oversight and crisis leadership defines how he views the job. “I really think it’s really important that I have that understanding,” Dr. D’Angelo said, “and I’ve got that background of really being a frontline doc and what it really means to be at the patient’s bedside.”
The leadership change occurs in a time of opportunity and growing complexity. Northwell recently completed the largest merger in its history, integrating Nuvance Health’s seven hospitals across the Hudson Valley and western Connecticut. “Getting that merger right is critically important,” he said. “It forces us to evolve our operating model — what is managed centrally versus locally — while ensuring quality, culture and financial performance stay strong.”
Simultaneously, Northwell is undertaking one of the largest electronic health record conversions to date. Its three-wave transition to Epic will ultimately involve training more than 100,000 users across hospitals and outpatient sites, with the first go-live scheduled just one month after Dr. D’Angelo becomes CEO.
Beyond these near-term priorities lies the broader transformation of care delivery itself. Like many health systems, Northwell faces mounting pressure from workforce shortages, rising costs, payer dynamics and shifting patient expectations. Yet Dr. D’Angelo sees these headwinds as catalysts for innovation rather than barriers to growth.
One area he highlights is Northwell’s growing focus on the aging population. With 11,000 Americans turning 65 every day — and many retiring from healthcare jobs themselves — he argues the status quo will not suffice. “We need new care delivery models, more proactive use of technology, and a digitally enabled community-based workforce to help people stay healthier, longer,” he explained.
But for all the operational complexity ahead, Dr. D’Angelo insists it is Northwell’s culture that remains its defining strength.
“The demand is constant, the pace is constant, and you’re doing that 168 hours a week, 365 days a year,” Dr. D’Angelo said. “And then you hear about burnout. And I think the reason Northwell’s been so successful is the message is always centered around purpose. It’s about reminding people that first and foremost, we are here to do what’s best for the patients that we have the privilege of serving — period.”
Dr. D’Angelo noted a steady focus on taking care of the people who take care of the patients, from health and wellbeing to educational opportunities and room for growth and career advancement. Northwell’s Center for Learning and Innovation was in many ways ahead of its time when Mr. Dowling established it in 2001. It is home to Northwell’s physician leadership institute, high potential development programs, patient safety institute and a dozen other cohorts and upskilling programs for employees.
Dr. D’Angelo’s constant striving for improvement also extends beyond work. Eight years ago, amid growing responsibilities, Dr. D’Angelo overhauled his personal health, losing 60 pounds, coming off medications and committing to more balance. He now speaks openly about the need for healthcare workers — including executives — to prioritize their well-being. “To be your best at work, you need to be your best self at home,” he said. “I want that to be part of Northwell’s culture, too.”
As Dr. D’Angelo succeeds Mr. Dowling, he inherits a system with enormous scale, strong performance and ambitious growth. Yet he also steps in at a turbulent time for healthcare nationally, with financial pressures, workforce challenges, and technological disruption reshaping the industry. His bet — and Northwell’s — is that deep operational knowledge, cultural continuity and an eagerness to innovate will position the system to thrive.
Colleagues often describe Dr. D’Angelo as an authentic, servant leader — someone who leads with humility, clarity and a team-first mindset. He credits this to both his upbringing and his years at the bedside.
“I’m still that same kid from the Bronx and Long Island who learned important values early on,” he said. “Every leadership role has simply been an opportunity to make a bigger impact — not an end in itself.”
