Becker’s asked C-suite executives from hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers and universities across the U.S. to share the future of c-suite roles.
The 69 executives featured in this article are all speaking at the Becker’s Healthcare 16th Annual Meeting, from April 13 – 16, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
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If you would like to join as a speaker or a reviewer, contact Mariah Muhammad at mmuhammad@beckershealthcare.com or agendateam@beckershealthcare.com.
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As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who will speak at our conference. The following are answers from our speakers at the event.
Question: How will health system C-suites transform through 2030?
John D. Couris. President and CEO of Tampa General Hospital (Fla.): Health system C-suites will continue to evolve rapidly through 2030, and the leaders who thrive will be those who can blend clarity of vision with adaptability in action. Many C-suite leaders across the country, including members of my own team, are doing meaningful, innovative work, and the next several years will demand even more of that mindset. In the years ahead, members of the C-suite will, more than ever, need to practice (in my team’s case, continue to practice) strategic improvisation: holding onto a strong strategic framework while staying agile enough to adjust in real time as circumstances shift.
The pace of change in healthcare won’t slow, and headwinds will only grow stronger, so leaders must become more comfortable with being uncomfortable. This means making decisions with only 60% to 70% (if that) of the information and embracing uncertainty within reason. They must be willing to fail fast, learn fast and move forward with intention.
Equally important, the C‑suite of the future will require leaders with deep emotional intelligence. These are people who understand how their teams think, what motivates them and how to create an environment where everyone can do their best work. The ability to build trust and bring out others’ strengths will be just as critical as operational expertise. By combining strategic agility, thoughtful risk‑taking and a people-centered leadership approach, health system executives will be well-positioned to guide their organizations through the complexities and opportunities that lie ahead.
Maria Ansari, MD. Co-CEO of The Permanente Federation; CEO and Executive Director of The Permanente Medical Group; President and CEO of Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group; CEO of Northwest Permanente (Oakland, Calif.): Health systems will need to be agile and ready to adapt to significant demographic and operational shifts already underway. One of the most pressing is an aging population — a trend driven by longer life expectancies, fewer births, and the large Baby Boomer generation all reaching age 65 or older by 2030. This demographic shift is increasing demand for care while simultaneously shrinking the workforce. C-suites will need to navigate reimbursement pressures, inpatient capacity constraints, and bottlenecks in post-acute care that can delay patient discharge. Care redesign will need to focus on more care at home and in the ambulatory space.
Success will require deep collaboration across executive functions — a strength of value-based, physician-led, and integrated health care systems like ours. The most effective C-suites will mirror what our executive teams are already doing at Kaiser Permanente and in the Permanente Medical Groups: working together and leveraging our integrated system to align people, processes, and technology — from digital health and AI tools to advanced electronic medical records. This approach enhances care delivery and supports patients having agency in their health, while also strengthening operational performance.
Nkem Chukwumerije, MD, MHA. President and Executive Medical Director of The Southeast Permanente Medical Group (Oakland, Calif.): The C-suites of health systems will undergo significant transformation through 2030, driven by the need to deliver high-value health care in a rapidly evolving environment. Executive teams will be outcomes-oriented, focused on health equity, and deeply connected to the communities they serve. The primary focus will shift from fee-for-service care, which emphasizes the number of services provided, to value-based care and quantifiable health outcomes. Success will be measured not just by financial performance but by the ability to improve the health of individuals as well as the entire population served, with an emphasis on attaining the highest level of health for all people.
Michelle Stansbury. Associate Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of IT Applications at Houston Methodist: As we look ahead to the next three years, the role of health system C-suites will go from not just managing organizations but also orchestrating care flow across the virtual and in-patient settings. Connected virtual care will be core infrastructure — not optional – with leaders accountable for shifting more specialty care into always-on, digitally enabled models that reshape staffing and care delivery. I anticipate hospital leadership will take accountability of what we at Houston Methodist call ‘care traffic control,’ using centralized monitoring, virtual nursing and real-time workflow management to ensure patients get to the right level of care at the right time.
At the same time, C-suite leaders will increasingly look at governing agentic AI as it scales across operations and clinical support, ensuring automation enhances access, efficiency and safety. Ultimately, the most effective leadership teams will integrate virtual care, intelligent automation and data-driven coordination to build more resilient, patient-centered systems.
Pooja Vyas, DO. System Vice President of Care Coordination Liaison, Physician and Provider Advisement at SSM Health (St. Louis): Health system C-suites are entering a new era of transformation that will accelerate through 2030. The traditional “operations-first” mindset is giving way to enterprise models focused on reliability, scalability, and accountability. For us, this means embedding governance structures — such as clinical denial oversight and throughput management — into daily operations to ensure rapid issue escalation and consistent performance. Disciplined execution, not fragmented innovation, will define success.
Digital transformation and AI adoption are reshaping leadership roles. Chief AI/data officers will become essential as hospitals deploy AI for clinical documentation, prior authorization automation, and predictive bed management. These roles will oversee compliance, auditability, and ROI while consolidating point solutions into enterprise platforms. For our teams, this integration strengthens revenue cycle, care coordination, and clinical workflows critical for improving financial sustainability and operational efficiency.
Value-based care will be mainstream by the end of the decade, driven by CMS mandates and payer incentives. Health systems must build infrastructure for risk-based contracting, equity-focused quality reporting, and site-of-care shifts toward ambulatory and home settings. These changes require rethinking capacity planning, authorization integrity, and patient logistics beyond inpatient care, directly impacting clinical denials, CDI, and revenue integrity strategies.
Finally, executive skill sets are evolving. Leaders must master AI, data governance, and regulatory complexity while driving cultural alignment and strategic agility. Success will be measured through integrated dashboards tracking denial rates, coding quality, throughput, and workforce health. For us, initiatives like a ‘Margin Integrity & Access’ dashboard and refreshed governance for AI and payer compliance will position our health system to thrive in a future defined by digital transformation, consumerism, and value-based care while protecting revenue and improving financial performance.
JohnRich R. Levine, DNP. Chief Nursing Officer of Reeves Regional Health (Pecos, Texas): By 2030, health system C-suites will adopt a more active, engaged leadership style. Executives will steer teams with clear data insights, quick decision-making, and a shared sense of purpose.
Leaders will foster environments where teams thrive through psychological safety, ongoing learning, and collaboration. Meanwhile, rural and community hospitals will expand their influence via targeted partnerships and local innovations.
C-suite strength will increase as leaders remain connected to daily operations, promote talent development, and visibly commit to quality and reliability.
Andrew Molosky. President and CEO of Chapters Health System (Temple Terrace, Fla.): As 2030 approaches and the reality of advancing payment and technology models become integral to operations C-suites are going to have to change as well. Innovation, change management, and modernized viewpoints are going to be essential to a system not falling behind. The next 5 years are poised for some of the most prolific change in our space in a very long time and any organization not in tune with what that means for moving from the past to the future in terms of executive leadership will be left behind. The ability to understand and adapt to technology, community-based care, and the talent acquisition landscape are no longer differentiators but now basic tenets of day-to-day leadership.
Luis Taveras, PhD. Senior Vice President and CIO of Jefferson Health (Philadelphia): At Jefferson, Data isn’t just a resource — it’s our operating system.
At Jefferson, we’re building the infrastructure for a leadership culture where information flows to the right people at the right time, without friction. Executives, clinicians, and staff will receive curated insights pushed to them in intuitive formats, and they’ll be able to ask questions in plain language — by voice or text — and get immediate, trustworthy answers, without worrying about where the data lives or how it was prepared. For us, this is broader than the C‑suite. We’re extending the same capability across our university, health plan, and care delivery organizations, so decisions at the bedside, in the classroom, and in the boardroom are all powered by the same high‑quality, governed data. We’re pairing that foundation with responsible AI, robust governance, and strong cybersecurity so innovation and safety move together. Our data-driven culture will result in faster decisions, better care, and a unified ‘One Jefferson’ experience for patients, learners, and colleagues. In short, our journey in the next decade will be focused on transforming our organization into a place where we turn intelligence into action reliably, ethically, and at scale.
Joe Caristi. CFO of Speare Memorial Hospital (Plymouth, N.H.): The financial reality facing healthcare is stark. Over the next five years, organizational survival, particularly in rural America, will depend on our ability to optimize every aspect of operations. Unstructured, flexible schedules and lengthy appointments that once signaled quality care now threaten our viability. We must abandon the false choice between efficiency and experience, as our future depends on achieving both.
Critical access hospitals like Speare face a particular challenge. While larger systems have employed teams of systems engineers and Lean Six Sigma experts for years, rural healthcare has operated without these resources, falling further behind with each passing year. The gap isn’t just uncomfortable — it’s existential, and for the C-suites of the future, the question isn’t whether to pursue comprehensive system optimization, but how quickly we can begin. Every month we delay is a month closer to a future we’re unprepared to meet.
Scott W. Jarvis, MD. Associate Vice President of Clinical Affairs at OhioHealth Van Wert Hospital: I believe that health system C‑suites will increasingly operate as platform orchestrators standing up integrated data/AI capabilities, a digital front door, and consumer navigation while driving operational efficiency and financial sustainability; this is already reflected in OhioHealth’s FY26 strategic pillars to digitally enable the customer experience, advance care pathways, and maintain strong operating cash flow. For my hospital directly, OhioHealth‑Van Wert Hospital, C‑suite focus will continue to center on shared services integration, goal deployment and executive dashboards to improve culture, service, and clinical outcomes. At the OhioHealth enterprise level, expect the C‑suite to keep aligning service‑line growth (e.g., oncology), consumer engagement, and Epic optimization with system partnerships building a safer, easier‑to‑use health system while scaling access across urban and rural markets.
Nirav Shah, MD, MPH. Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer of AI and Innovation at Endeavor Health (Evanston, Ill.): The health system C-suite will be fundamentally reshaped by 2030, driven by interconnected dual mandates of AI/digital transformation and achieving financial sustainability in the setting of numerous external pressures. New roles like the chief AI officer will emerge to strategically integrate technology into care and operations, while the chief operating officer will leverage AI to drive cost-saving efficiencies across staffing and throughput. The chief human resources officer will focus on AI-driven workforce redesign, aggressive technology focused upskilling and a dedicated focus on employee well-being to navigate severe labor shortages.
Quanna Batiste-Brown, DNP, RN. Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Touro Infirmary, LCMC Health: Over the next five years, healthcare systems will undergo a profound transformation, evolving into larger, clinically integrated networks. Driven by both internal and external pressures, these systems will be compelled to optimize clinical care delivery models, enhance value, and undergo a transformative process through the integration of technology, including ambient artificial intelligence and other revenue cycle efficiencies.
Consequently, due to a turnover in nursing leadership, nursing will emerge as a more youthful workforce, with leadership being guided by succession planning and the constant adaptation to the evolving demands of regulatory and accreditation bodies.
To remain competitive, healthcare systems will benefit by focusing forward on branding, leveraging authentic leadership, optimizing the voice of the consumer, and delivering niche specialty care in order to emerge as leaders in the competitive marketplace.
Gina Cronin. Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of Children’s National Hospital: At Children’s National we are delving into what are the unique capabilities our executive leadership team needs most in the next few years. Emerging at the very top of that list is: agility. Each of our executives need to be agile and responsive to the impending shifts of workforce and technology, including AI enablement, and how that will impact their teams, functions. We are encouraging agility to scan the environment and bring actionable solutions today to be ready tomorrow. Specifically, we are looking to redesign workflow and jobs in clinical and administrative areas that will bring not only efficiency but also improved outcomes and patient experience.
Zafar Chaudry, MD, MS, MIS, MBA. Senior Vice President, Chief Digital Officer and Chief AI and Chief Information Officer of Seattle Children’s: The transformation for health system C-suites by 2030 will be profound, necessitating a fundamental shift in leadership identity: these executives must transition from being traditional hospital managers to becoming sophisticated digital and population health strategists. A massive emphasis will be placed on leveraging AI and data analytics to drive operational efficiency, facilitate the move of care into the home, and proactively predict health issues before they manifest. This strategic redirection requires a mindset shift that absolutely prioritizes value-based care and innovation, recognizing technology not merely as a support function but as a core enabler of the entire care model. Ultimately, C-suite leaders must champion agility and resilience to effectively navigate persistent financial pressures and looming workforce challenges, ensuring their primary focus remains on the delivery of equitable, personalized, and high-quality patient experiences across the entire health continuum.
Wayne Gillis. President and CEO of Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services (Gallup, N.M.): The transformation of health system C-suites through 2030 will likely be influenced by several key trends and challenges:
Digital Transformation: C-suites will need to embrace digital health technologies, including telemedicine, artificial intelligence, and data analytics. Leaders will focus on integrating these technologies to enhance patient care and operational efficiency.
Value-Based Care: A shift from fee-for-service to value-based care will drive C-suites to prioritize patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness. This requires new strategies in care delivery and reimbursement models.
Patient-Centric Care: Leadership will focus on improving the patient experience by involving patients in their own health decisions and tailoring services to meet individual needs.
Workforce Development: Attracting and retaining skilled health professionals will be critical. C-suites will invest in workforce training and mental health support to combat burnout and high turnover rates.
Regulatory Adaptation: With evolving regulations and policies, C-suites will need to stay agile and compliant, ensuring their systems can adapt to changes in healthcare laws and standards.
Financial Sustainability: As healthcare costs continue to rise, C-suites will need to devise strategies for financial sustainability, including cost management and alternative revenue streams.
Collaborative Partnerships: There will be a trend toward forming partnerships with technology companies, community organizations, and other stakeholders to enhance service delivery and expand reach.
Overall, the role of health system executives will increasingly revolve around strategy.
Gil Padula, MD. Chief Medical Officer and Market Medical Director of Case Management, St. Elizabeth Hospital and Youngstown Market at Bon Secours Mercy Health (Cincinnati): I believe that as we move toward 2030 and beyond, we will see transformation in multiple C-suite roles. As we have asked our teams to flex, be resilient and take on more, we will be seeing more of that as leaders. For instance, a CMO may have more operational responsibility, or even have a dual COO/CMO job title. We will be asking our leaders to be more nimble, and to take on roles and responsibilities that may or may not perfectly match their job title.
Jimmy Chung, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Advantus, Bon Secours Mercy Health (Cincinnati): I would call out three main areas of c-suite level transformation. 1) Technology is important, of course, but I think AI will have its own c-suite leader or focus because there is not a single area of healthcare delivery that is not touched by AI. In addition, AI will need strategic direction to maximize its potential and growth, both clinically and financially, and if done right has a huge potential to become a significant patient and provider satisfyer. 2) Patient experience will be the ultimate KPI that highlights the success of a health care system. Patients have expectations as consumers of both self-driven and provider-driven health management. This extends far beyond hospitals and doctors, into consumer technologies, grocery stores, transportation, schools, and many other facets of society. Chief experience officers are now becoming common, and their scope will only grow wider as systems see continued site shifting and blurring of health and healthcare. 3) The chief supply chain officer is already common in many systems, but they usually exist under the CFO or COO. However, as the role expands beyond just medical devices to pharmacy, purchased services, facility management, and beyond to include all non-labor spend, the CSCO will grow into a more strategic role that transcends all other verticals and integrates directly into clinical operations. This is already recognized by many experts as a critical practice to prepare for value-based care transformation.
Marie Langley. CEO of Desert Valley Medical Group (Victorville, Calif.): Between now and 2030, C-suites will continue to evolve, with some roles expanding or emerging and others becoming obsolete. The most effective executive teams will remain lean, emphasizing clear communication and direct oversight of the organization.
Looking ahead, artificial intelligence will continue to drive major initiatives across the industry, from documentation enhancement to revenue cycle optimization. Healthcare has long trailed other sectors in adopting advanced technologies, and I anticipate substantial progress and modernization over the next decade.
Paula Ferrada, MD. Chair Department of Surgery Inova Fairfax Medical Campus; Division and System Chief of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at Inova Healthcare System (Fairfax, Va.): When you’ve spent years leading at the bedside, in the operating room, and across a system caring for the most vulnerable, you learn quickly that the C-suite of 2030 cannot look, think, or operate like the C-suite of the past. Healthcare is no longer a collection of departments and campuses. It’s an ecosystem — interconnected, interdependent, and accountable to a community that expects seamless care, not silos.
At Inova Health, we are building toward a future where leadership is judged not by control, but by collaboration. Titles don’t drive transformation — trust does. As chair of surgery at Fairfax and system chief of trauma and acute care surgery, I have seen firsthand that the work ahead requires leaders who understand both the science and the soul of healthcare. The boardroom must speak the same language as the bedside, not because it’s convenient, but because lives and equity depend on it.
The C-suite of 2030 will be different in three profound ways.
First — it will be clinically fluent. Not every executive will be a clinician, but the decisions must be grounded in the reality of patient care, workforce wellbeing, and what it actually takes to deliver safe surgery at 2 pm and at 2 am.
Second — it will be systems-minded. Operating as five hospitals instead of one health system is the costliest mistake any organization can make. True systemness minimizes duplication, elevates standards, and gives every patient the same expectation of excellence regardless of ZIP code, insurance card, or entrance door. It’s not consolidation for power — it’s consolidation for purpose.
And third — it will be relentlessly human-centered. The greatest currency in healthcare is not margin, square footage, or technology — it is trust. The organizations that will thrive by 2030 will be those that create cultures where nurses want to stay, surgeons want to lead, patients want to return, and the community feels seen.
I don’t believe the C-suite will simply ‘transform.’ I believe it will — and must — evolve into something more humble, more transparent, more team-oriented, and more accountable to the people who give their lives to this work.
We are not building the healthcare system of tomorrow because it’s strategic. We’re building it because the people we serve deserve nothing less.
Wendy Horton, PharmD, MBA. Senior Vice President and President of Adult Services at UCSF Health (San Francisco): By 2030, we as leaders, especially in academic medical centers, will need every skill we rely on today, only amplified. Agility, business acumen, digital fluency, strategic thinking, and systems level problem solving must all rise to meet constant uncertainty. We will need to communicate with honesty and empathy, guide teams through rapid change, and advance new care models while keeping our mission front and center. Our impact will come from how well we listen, how intentionally we build relationships, and how deeply we care for the people we serve and lead. The future of care will require leaders who are both boldly decisive and profoundly human.
Kellan Tittle. CFO of People Incorporated Mental Health Services (Eagan, Minn.): I think the drive for integration and automation will cause executives to move from traditional leadership to an integrated, tech focused, client driven strategy. Roles will become more integrated, with greater emphasis on AI governance, data analysis, workforce redesign, and whole person cost models. We’ll see more, chief AI/data officers, clinical care officers while CFOs and COOs become more analytics driven and operationally agile.
Overall, C-suites will be expected to deliver consistent financial performance, integrated patient experience, stronger payer partnerships, and a more fluid care model. The most successful leadership teams will be those that can navigate both technological disruption and workforce scarcity while still improving access, care, and outcomes.
Thresa Hardy, DNP, RN. CNO and COO of UNC Rockingham Health Care (Eden, N.C.): Specific to our small, rural community hospital, transformation will emphasize hybrid leadership roles such as combining CNO and COO responsibilities to streamline decision-making and reduce costs. This dual role aligns clinical priorities with operational strategy, ensuring every initiative touches patient care. Collaboration among CMO, CNO, and COO will become standard, breaking down silos and enabling integrated governance for clinical quality, financial sustainability, and operational efficiency. Partnerships with local organizations and state agencies will be critical for addressing social determinants of health and securing funding through programs like CMS’s Rural Health Transformation initiative. Lastly, telehealth and remote monitoring will expand access, and leaders must balance tech adoption with evidence-based care and human connection.
Deepti Pandita, MD. Vice President of Clinical Informatics and Chief Medical Information Officer at UCI Health (Orange, Calif.): By 2030 healthcare will be shifting from the traditional hospital centric model to digitally integrated patient centric models which will need new leadership skillsets that are technology savvy, can thrive under financial uncertainty and changing reimbursement models and are able to balance innovation against sustainability.
Ben Goodstein. Vice President and Chief Ambulatory Officer of Dayton Children’s Hospital; President of Dayton Children’s Specialty Physicians Inc. (Ohio): By 2030, health system C-suites will be transformed by both a generational shift and the rise of AI. As experienced leaders retire, we risk losing institutional wisdom, but we also gain the chance to reimagine leadership. The most successful C-suites will be those that intentionally blend human connection with technological leverage. AI will not replace our people; instead, it will serve as a strategic thought partner, automating routine tasks and surfacing insights so leaders can focus on what matters most: building trust, nurturing talent, and strengthening the culture that drives performance.
The future C-suite will be defined by leaders who invest their time where it matters most on the will of the people. By using AI to support ethical decision-making and operational excellence, we free ourselves to deepen relationships with staff, providers, and patients. Our competitive edge will come not from technology alone, but from how we use it to amplify empathy, inspire teams, and create organizations where people feel valued and empowered. In this new era, the human element supported, not replaced by AI, will be the true differentiator.
Lisa Hudnall. Chief of Human Resources at UVA Physicians Group (Charlottesville, Va.): As we approach 2030, health system C-suites will undergo significant transformations driven by evolving healthcare demands, technological advancements, and a heightened focus on employee well-being. One of the most notable shifts will be the integration of data analytics and artificial intelligence in decision-making processes, enabling executive leaders to make more informed, real-time strategic choices. At the University of Virginia Physicians Group, this will enhance operational efficiency, patient care, and resource management, ultimately leading to improved health outcomes.
Particularly in the realm of human resources, the role of HR leaders will expand beyond traditional functions to become even more of a key strategic partner in shaping organizational culture, employee well-being, and workforce engagement. As UPG continues to prioritize talent retention and development, HR will leverage innovative approaches such as personalized employee experiences, comprehensive wellness programs, and flexible work arrangements to attract and retain top talent. By 2030, HR will not only support UPG’s operational goals but also be instrumental in creating a resilient and adaptive workforce capable of navigating the complexities of the future healthcare landscape.
Craig Walls, MD, PhD. Chief Medical Officer of Natividad Medical Center (Salinas, Calif.): C-suites will have to have flexibility to adapt to rapid adoption of technology as well as a fluid financial environment. Funding changes at the federal and state levels will force hospital leaders to find efficiencies. Lateral thinking will be required in all of the C-suites’ offices.
Brad L. Meyer. CEO of Bluestem Health (Lincoln, N.E.): By 2030, healthcare leadership will look different in some ways but familiar in others. Executives won’t just manage budgets and operations; they’ll still be navigating complex payment models, policy changes, and compliance requirements while trying to keep care affordable and accessible. Working closely with payers will remain essential, but finding common ground on shared goals like better outcomes and lower costs will likely become even harder. At the same time, leaders will need to lean on AI and automation to ease staffing shortages and cut administrative burdens, making operations more efficient while addressing workforce burnout.
Equally important, leaders will need to show up in their communities in a bigger way. Building trust through outreach, preventive programs, and partnerships that address social factors will matter more than ever. Visibility strengthens patient loyalty and gives organizations leverage in payer negotiations. When patients know who you are and see you as more than ‘a suit in the corner office,’ they understand that contract negotiations are about protecting their access to care — not just dollars. Without that connection, it looks like executives are just fighting over money. In short, the C-suite of the future will be less about running hospitals and clinics and more about leading connected networks, using technology, payer collaboration, and community relationships to deliver care that’s sustainable and centered on the people we serve.
Alan McQueen. Vice President of Supply Chain at Duly Health and Care (Downers Grove, Ill.): I think there will continue to be pressure on supply chain leaders to drive costs out of the system in a few specific areas. Embracing AI in category management and further advancement of predictive analytics in the drug space. AI can save valuable time analyzing current spend to contractual terms instantly, but it can articulate how net cost recovery affects encounter cost in both fee-for-service and value-based care models in real time. Secondly, I think there continues to be more opportunity with indirect spend that is not addressed due to organizational structure. Lastly, partnering with GPOs to mitigate tariff noise will be essential. For small systems or independents, this can be invaluable.
Muhammad Owais Khan, MD. Chief Medical Officer and Designated Institutional Official of Three Crosses Regional Hospital (Las Cruces, N.M.): Health system C-suites will change from mainly running day-to-day operations to using AI and data to guide almost every decision. Leaders will combine virtual care, in-person care, and home care so patients can get help anywhere. New jobs like chief AI officer and chief digital officer will become common as hospitals take on more responsibility for long-term patient outcomes and costs. Success will depend on keeping care safe, affordable, secure from cyberattacks, and easier for doctors and nurses to deliver. By 2030, strong C-suites will run hospitals more like modern, tech-enabled health companies focused on better care at lower cost.
Deborah Visconi. President and CEO of Bergen New Bridge Medical Center (Paramus, N.J.): By 2030, I believe health system C-suites will be transformed into far more integrated, data-driven, and community-centered leadership teams. At Bergen New Bridge, we’re already moving in that direction. Our rollout of Epic is reshaping how we make decisions, coordinate care, and empower clinicians with real-time insights. We’re also leading a major transformation of our emergency department — building a new model of emergency care for New Jersey that integrates medical, behavioral health, and social-care capabilities from the moment a patient walks in. And as the state’s largest provider of behavioral health services, our continued expansion in this space requires a C-suite steeped in population health, partnership development, and cross-continuum integration.
The C-suite of 2030 will succeed by blending digital innovation with deep community understanding — and by breaking down the traditional silos that have kept acute care, behavioral health, long-term care, and public health separated for too long.
Tomi Kolade, MD. Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer of UTHealth Houston: By 2030, I believe health system C-suites will operate as unified, learning-oriented leadership teams where clinical leaders, operations, and data science work in one continuous decision loop focused on improving access, quality, and financial stability. Hospitals and clinical practices are shifting from slow, project-by-project execution to AI-supported, continuously improving workflows such as ambient documentation, predictive operations, and early equity checks, all reinforced by strong governance. Executive teams including the COO, CFO, CIO, CMIO, and others will increasingly run the organization on real-time data rather than retrospective reports, allowing care models to adjust weekly instead of yearly. Many health systems will also introduce supervised AI extender roles that reduce administrative work and expand frontline capacity. The shared industry goal remains simple: give clinicians and patients more time together, reduce unnecessary clicks, and build organizations that learn and improve every day.
Veronica T. Mallett, MD. System Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, More in Common Alliance at CommonSpirit Health (Chicago); Professor at Morehouse School of Medicine: C-suites nationwide will be focused on squeezing every ounce of reimbursement they can to make a small margin. As the year progresses decisions on AI drive technology investments and workforce optimization will dominate their discussions. More systems will look for network integrity and hospital at home.
Joy N. White, DNP, RN. Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Legacy Health Good Samaritan Medical Center (Portland, Ore.): By 2030, I believe health system C-suites will become far more operational, integrated, and responsive to the realities shaping healthcare. The political climate, regulatory pressures, workforce shortages, and the shifting care continuum — all reinforced by long-range projections from organizations like Vizient and Sg2 — point to a decade of profound restructuring. As inpatient demand evolves, outpatient growth accelerates, and cost pressures intensify, C-suites will need to function as tightly aligned operating units rather than siloed executive roles. Leaders will be expected to integrate clinical, financial, digital, and workforce strategies in real time, with an emphasis on execution, adaptability, and system-level thinking.
Ultimately, the C-suite of the future will be designed less around titles and more around the capability to lead complex, interdependent work.
Jahmal Miller. Chief Administrative Officer of Dignity Health Mercy Medical Group, CommonSpirit Health (Chicago): The health system C-suite of 2030 will be defined by a new set of capabilities. Achieving value, effective cost management, revenue enhancement, and robust corporate governance will increasingly hinge on leaders who explicitly champion health equity as a critical economic priority — one that demonstrably improves outcomes and financial performance. This will necessitate elevating historically undervalued services such as community benefit, population health, community health, grantmaking, procurement, and mission integration to core business and mission imperatives. Executives who possess expertise and practical experience in these areas will be essential for unlocking sustainable value. The C-suite’s core competencies and strategic focus will undeniably shift to prioritize these critical skillsets.
Mark Whalen. Executive Vice President and Enterprise Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer of Jefferson Health (Philadelphia): Health systems today face unprecedented pressures making transformational change not just an option, but a necessity to sustainably serve our communities. At Jefferson in Philadelphia, we’ve learned that success starts with bold leadership: the ability to distinguish between changes that can be managed incrementally and those that demand a fundamentally different approach. Artificial intelligence is a prime example. Its potential isn’t just another technology upgrade — it’s a paradigm shift that requires reimagining operations across every function. For C-suite leaders nationwide, the challenge is clear: identify what’s truly different in today’s environment and craft strategies that rise to meet it. This is the moment to lead with vision and courage, shaping the future of healthcare and not simply adapting to it.
Caitlyn Obrock. System Director of Workforce Strategy and Scheduling at SSM Health (St. Louis): The healthcare systems we lead today were never designed for the volume, speed, and complexity of 2025, let alone 2030. The fractures in workforce stabilization, financial instability, and ever-changing landscapes are structural failures threatening collapse on healthcare. We are demanding growth and profitable margins, while those are imperative, we also must treat disruption as a survival mechanism. If we continue to optimize a broken model, we will be outmaneuvered by those willing to dismantle and rebuild it. The next five years will separate outdated operators from the new innovators. We must have the courage to do healthcare differently, stabilizing us from the ground up and reimagine the way we have always delivered care to continue providing exceptional care to our patients, communities, and clinicians.
Heather Resseger, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President, Chief Hospital Operations Officer and Chief Nursing Officer of NorthBay Health (San Francisco): Over the next four years, we will continue to redefine healthcare. I believe we will see C-Suite leaders who must bring several skill sets to move organizations forward through multiple headwinds. Historically, C-Suite leaders were developed in one specific avenue that made them successful in leading that part of the organization. For example, chief nursing or chief medical officer roles have traditionally been held by strong clinicians who led their teams in day-to-day operations with a focus on quality and safety.
Those roles are now evolving. While those functions remain critical, all members of the C-suite must also be able to lean into strategy, process improvement, visionary, collaborative leadership both inside and outside of their organizations. Health systems have historically relied on their internal strengths, but we now must work across organizations to build a preventative health model for our communities.
C-suite leaders who can forge those partnerships while maintaining their mission will be the ones who succeed as healthcare continues to navigate constant change. NorthBay Health is adopting this model under the leadership of our president and CEO, Mark Behl, to ensure we continue moving healthcare forward for Northern California and the communities we serve.
Ceonne Houston-Raasikh, DNP, RN. Chief Nursing Officer at Keck Medicine of USC, Keck Hospital (Los Angeles): Health system C-suites will need the ability to be agile. Healthcare will continue changing, but at a faster rate with more complexity. Much of this will be largely driven by technology. And many health systems will increasingly adopt new c-level positions to oversee new areas of focus.
Theresa McDonnell, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive of Duke University Health System (Durham, N.C.): C-suites are going to need to transition in mindset from extended long-term planning and budgeting to be more agile in response to a changing landscape. C-suite level leaders will also need to be well versed in advances in technology and be prepared to transition care delivery systems from legacy to transformational models.
Probably most importantly though, C-suite leadership needs to reflect the staff more than ever before. If staff don’t see the work they do is understood and reflected at the highest levels of the organization then engagement and change management will become increasingly difficult.
Matthew Ducsik. Vice President of Providence Clinical Institutes at Providence (Renton, Wash.): One of the most exciting C-suite transformations is the growing number of physicians and clinicians in chief executive and chief operating officer roles. Research is starting to illustrate the significant transformational potential within healthcare, including clinical excellence, provider satisfaction, innovation, and financial and operational success. Within Providence, Dr. Darryl Elmouchi currently serves as the chief operating officer and a significant number of our regions, hospitals and medical groups are now led by either physicians or nurses. Administrative executives will continue to serve as strategic thinkers and operating partners, often in a dyad model, and will be necessary to enable this transformation over the next three to five years. Organizations should also be intentional as to how they develop their clinical leaders through both formal programs and informal relationships; true investment in structured clinical leadership development programs remains a gap that must be addressed.
Sriram Vissa, MD. Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Medical Affairs at SSM Health DePaul Hospital (St. Louis): The future of health system C-suites will be marked by a significant shift towards a more integrated, tech-savvy approach. By 2030, we can expect these executive teams to embrace advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning to enhance decision-making processes and improve patient outcomes. Additionally, there will be greater emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, with C-suites incorporating diverse expertise from fields such as data analytics, cybersecurity, and patient experience.
Furthermore, the focus on value-based care will drive C-suites to prioritize patient-centered strategies, ensuring that quality and efficiency are at the forefront of healthcare delivery. This transformation will not only streamline operations but also foster a culture of innovation and adaptability within health systems.
Darrell Bodnar. CIO of North Country Healthcare (Lancaster, N.H.): Through 2030, the healthcare C-suite will continue to shift from traditional role silos to a far more integrated, operationally embedded leadership model. Titles will matter less than capabilities, with CIOs, CMIOs, CFOs, and COOs increasingly co-owning strategies around digital enablement, workforce sustainability, access to care, and clinical outcomes. For rural health systems in particular, C-suite leaders will need to be fluent in technology, finance, and operations while simultaneously leveraging digital platforms, AI, virtual care, and shared services not as innovations, but as necessities and tools for survival. The future C-suite will spend less time managing departments and more time orchestrating their entire healthcare ecosystem. We are already seeing this occur today and suspect the trend will continue. It will be about aligning providers, payers, vendors, regulators, and communities around simplicity, reliability, and measurable value while maintaining a relentless focus on patient safety, staff experience, and long-term financial resilience. The game is changing, and it will continue to change.
James Fenush, RN. Vice President of Nursing Emergency Services and Clinical Support Services at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center: As Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey continues to evolve to meet the increasing complexities of modern healthcare, executive C-suite nurse leaders must ensure that nursing work is positioned as a strategic value generator, with clear and measurable contributions to quality, safety, efficiency, and financial performance. Strategic priorities driven by nursing leadership include developing multi-year, data-driven workforce plans; integrating artificial intelligence to streamline documentation and enhance clinical decision-making; and implementing systemwide, standardized, evidence-based practices to reduce variation and improve reliability.
At the same time, we must strengthen nursing-related revenue capture and expand innovative care delivery models to meet emerging demands. Throughout this transformation, the pursuit of high reliability and zero patient harm must remain central guided by executive C-suite nurse leaders that continuously advance safety, quality and operational excellence.
Peter D. Banko. President and CEO of Baystate Health (Springfield, Mass.): Things are really heating up over the next five years. The largest reductions to healthcare programs in our lifetimes with OB3. The promise of AI. You fill in the challenges and opportunities here. To transform and thrive, health system C-suites must become adept at playing with fire and handling heat in team and individual conversations. We want the best of the fire and heat – brightness, intensity, illumination, and sparks. To fuel the powers of passion, debate, fierce commitment, and compassion.
Joshua Moskovitz, MD, MBA, MPH. Medical Director of Utilization Management in the Office of Population Health and Ambulatory Care at NYC Health + Hospitals: I think health system C-suites will transform markedly over the next five years by leveraging advances in AI technology, not for interactions and diagnostics, but for leveraging data. Traditionally data has been hard to come by, validate, and interpret as the quantities were sheer overwhelming and hard to conceptualize. I think we will find better coalition, gradation, interpretation, and application to streamline processes: think turnaround times, scheduling, predictive analytics, etc.
Dan Hackner, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical and Academic Officer of Southcoast Health System (New Bedford, Mass.): At Southcoast Health, we anticipate an architectonic transformation of health system C-suites. Like enduring Frank Lloyd Wright designs, C-suites will build on a concrete foundation of trust and operations, unfenced by management silos, and governed with wide windows to keep board members, colleagues, clinicians, and community in clear view. Wright-like C-suites of the future will be moderately sized for collaboration, situated outside prime clinical real estate reserved for direct care, functional not decorative, and bolstered by mutually reinforcing members to guard against sheer stresses of an increasingly turbulent market. C-suites will use agile design-build approaches to speed implementation of key strategic pillars and will value nimbleness and resilience in all leadership. Responsive C-suites will embrace deference to clinical expertise and a minimalist design ethic that drives out waste. Lastly, transformed C-suites support a weather-tight ceiling of patient and employee safety topped by a high spire welcoming all to advanced medicine, more care.
Mark G. Moseley, MD. President of USF Tampa General Physicians; Executive Vice President of Tampa General Hospital (Fla.): The ‘complexity fit’ C-suite of the future in healthcare must be able to help absorb uncertainty for their teams. This means these executives must be resilient, build strong/positive relationships, and cultivate trust with their physicians, providers, and team members through consistency. This will require discipline, intense focus, and outstanding communication. It will also require visibility and clear bidirectional connection and communication with front line workers. To strengthen those bonds, and to build those connections, leaders will need to get ‘out and about’ more to re-enforce messaging; through town hall meetings, a ‘multi-channel’ of communication offerings, and in-person/smaller group connections. And there must be a north star and intentionality to building these relationships focused on the shared purpose, vision, and values of the organization. This will be extremely demanding for C-suite leaders. It will test their range, and their ability to connect with teams to prioritize and focus on goals while external forces create an environment of continued ambiguity and complexity that must be navigated.
Jill Wiedemann-West. CEO of People Incorporated Mental Health Services (Eagan, Minn.): I believe C-suites will undergo significant evolution over the next five years. Traditional roles will give way to a more enterprise-driven structure, requiring leaders to expand beyond their historic scope. Growth and learning will be essential as organizations balance tight management of their core operations with the need to adapt to rapid technological change, shifting economic realities, and global pressures. Recruitment will focus not only on proven expertise but also on agility and curiosity, recognizing that traditional skills alone will no longer define a strong C-suite team.
Robert Corona, DO. John B. Henry Professor of Pathology at SUNY Upstate Medical University; CEO of SUNY Upstate Medical University Hospital (Syracuse, N.Y.): All CEOs are navigating escalating costs, declining reimbursement, capacity constraints, rising patient acuity, expanding regulatory requirements, and persistent workforce shortages. Meaningful transformation must address people, processes, and technology.
We must invest in the education and development of our teams to ensure they have the capabilities required to succeed in a rapidly changing environment. At the same time, we need to streamline workflows and reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens that inhibit efficiency and innovation.
Finally, technology will serve as the connective tissue that enables our systems to adapt and respond with agility. The C-suite must remain vigilant, anticipate emerging challenges, and implement timely adjustments to ensure organizational resilience and long-term success.
Trevor Walker. Senior Vice President of Talent, Learning and Capabilities at CommonSpirit Health (Chicago): By 2030, the health system C-suite will look fundamentally different than it does today, not just administering but shaping enterprises. The forces that are reshaping healthcare — disruption in consumer expectations, competition that includes non-traditional providers, workforce instability, payment reform, and the accelerating influence of AI — will require leaders who operate with sharper agility, deeper cross-system integration, and stronger cultures. Executive roles will evolve from being an experienced operator managing their function into an enterprise-level architect — one who mobilizes talent, technology, and community partnerships to create sustainable performance. The organizations that thrive will be led by executives who combine operational precision with the courage to transform what healthcare has historically been into what communities will need next.
Warren E. Moore. Executive Vice President and COO of Inspira Health (Mullica Hill, N.J.): As health systems navigate the accelerating pace of change over the next several years, C-suite leadership will evolve into a smaller, more collaborative team that balances data-driven decision-making with a strengthened human touch. Embracing AI is mandatory and while that may reduce the number of traditional leadership roles, new positions rooted in technology and data – such as chief AI officer or a chief transformation officer – will emerge. These roles will further unite executive teams, integrating data into every facet of a health system for more seamless operations and fostering collective decision-making to break down silos and enhance the transitions between care settings for patients. Beyond innovation, the C-suite will also need to make strategic investments in workforce talent and organizational culture to underscore its value of empathy and collaboration, particularly at the point of care. Together, this balance of data-driven and human-centered approach to care will permeate throughout the health system and ultimately elevate the patient experience.
Thomas W. Scott. President and CEO of CentraState Healthcare System (Freehold, N.J.): As part of Atlantic Health, CentraState’s C-suite is focused on the system’s path to top performance as a national leader in healthcare. Our plan is designed around strategic imperatives that will shape how we deliver care, support our teams and serve our communities. From top decile engagement among team members and clinicians to succession planning and leader development, we see our strategic imperatives as more than goals. They are our shared beliefs and a roadmap for leading with purpose and building healthier communities together. As C-suite leaders navigate a rapidly changing environment, agility, resilience and strategic transformation with intentional follow-through will future-proof the organization to continuously guide our system forward.
William A. Wertheim, MD. Executive Vice President of Stony Brook Medicine (N.Y.): I think that quality, operations, and information technology will grow even more in importance than their current roles, and we will see a greater need for collaboration among these three common C-suite positions. I would think that experience in AI and data science will become increasingly more important for those in the COO and CQO roles. Additionally, I think the patient experience role will also grow in prominence as patients deserve and demand a robust experience with their caregivers. The CEO role will demand more interdisciplinary collaboration among the C-suite team to weave these functions seamlessly.
Mila Sprouse, EdD, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Officer of North Puget Sound Region at Providence (Renton, Wash.): By 2030, C-suites will be defined by leaders who can bridge a generational workforce immersed in technology yet still longing for presence, connection, and authentic humanization. The executives who will stand apart are those who can de-intensify the complexity of technology, making it feel more human, more accessible, and more grounded in purpose. As AI and digital tools reshape care delivery, leaders will need to interpret data and metrics through the lens of relationship-based leadership, ensuring innovation strengthens rather than replaces trust. The most effective CNOs and C-suite leaders will be those who communicate from the heart, elevate lived experience, and connect technology to meaning, mission, and the people we serve.
This reflects my leadership equation — Resilience × Activated Courage = Unstoppable Courage to Rise™ (UCTR™) — because the C-suites of the future will belong to leaders who stay human, lead boldly, and rise with purpose in a rapidly changing world.
Michele Szkolnicki, BSN, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center: I believe that by 2030, health system C-suites will look very different. We are already seeing leaner executive teams and the combining of C-suite roles as organizations pursue aggressive cost-cutting strategies to remain financially viable, and this will continue. While centralization has been a popular efficiency play, some systems will discover that overly centralized services can fall short in supporting frontline operations and local needs. This should drive a shift toward empowering stronger middle management and distributed leadership models, giving operational leaders more autonomy and accountability.
Technology will continue to reshape decision-making, with AI and predictive analytics guiding resource allocation, workforce planning, and patient flow. Beyond insights, AI will simplify or even eliminate administrative burdens that have historically consumed leadership bandwidth. This will hopefully free up time for strategic and human-centered priorities.
These shifts will make the human element of healthcare more critical than ever. Culture will emerge as the primary currency for differentiation in an increasingly standardized healthcare landscape. Organizations that foster trust, resilience, and belonging will outperform those that focus solely on operational efficiency. Staff and clinician well-being will remain a strategic imperative, as burnout and workforce shortages persist.
Ultimately, the C-suite of the future will be smaller – and will need to become more agile, and deeply collaborative, blending financial stewardship with clinical insight – and will continue the struggle to maintain the balance between these two.
Sandra Scott, MD. CEO of One Brooklyn Health (N.Y.): By 2030, health system leaders will focus on expanding ambulatory care by improving access, prevention services, and patient experience. Technology will enhance clinical services and access. Executive leaders will distinguish themselves by having a strategy that takes advantage of rapidly changing technology.
Royce Brown. President and CEO of AdventHealth Lake Wales (Fla.): C-Suites moving forward will need to lean into adaptability and agility. We are seeing more movement towards value-based payment which will require an enhanced focus on new models of care. This will require C-suites to look at data analytics, staffing models and technological deployments at a more rapid pace. This will also heighten the need to constantly connect with the consumers of healthcare to adapt to their perceptions of healthcare and the services being offered. C-suites will no longer be able to exist only within the walls of their organizations; they will also need to be integrated into the communities and organizations they are a part of.
Michael Antoniades. President of UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial Hospital: Health system C-suites will need to evolve into adaptive strategists who can simultaneously drive technological innovation, navigate complex regulatory landscapes, strengthen strategic partnerships and preserve organizational mission in an increasingly challenging environment.
At UChicago Medicine, we’re prioritizing AI projects to tackle workforce shortages and boost efficiency using ambient clinical documentation tools and AI-driven chart summarization to free up more patient time for doctors and caregivers while streamlining back-office operations tailored to our organization’s needs.
Leadership teams must pivot strategies quickly to align with changes like OBBBA advancements and other shifts impacting hospital performance, while taking deliberate steps to address operational and financial hurdles from regulatory and legislative updates.
Critically, we must engage with payers to expand value-based programs that ensure care and access aren’t disrupted amid Medicaid regulatory changes. Expanding collaboration will also be essential — with state and national hospital associations to amplify hospital voices and foster dialogue around quality care access — while actively involving donors to fuel long-term strategic goals and investing in development and succession planning to cultivate internal talent, drive initiatives and preserve organizational culture.
The executives who thrive will be those who understand that sustainability goes beyond the bottom line — it’s about ensuring critical services remain available in the communities that need them most.
Jason M. Golbin, DO. Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Catholic Health (Long Island, N.Y.): We expect health system C-suites to become smaller and more operator-focused. Look for more emphasis on clinical integration and accountability in the delivery and strengthening of access, quality, financial performance, workforce stability and — most importantly — patient experience. In fact, the brand experience of a health system will be the primary differentiator for customers (patients and employees) on the go-forward. I think we’ll also see tighter coordination between clinical, digital, finance and HR leadership as AI, cybersecurity, capacity management and revenue integrity become inseparable from care delivery. At Catholic Health, leadership is about translating strategy into execution across all sites of care, aligning physicians and frontline teams around consistent standards and removing friction from daily workflows. As we look ahead in our ever-changing industry, the most effective C-suites will be those that prioritize building a structure guided by disciplined governance, measurable outcomes and a culture that can adapt quickly without losing sight of its mission.
Salim S. Hayek, MD. Chair of Department of Internal Medicine and Chief Transformation Officer at The University of Texas Medical Branch (Galveston, Texas): The C-suite of 2030 will be defined by the dissolution of silos. Driven by an aging population and the imperative for value, the traditional divide between administrative, clinical, and academic leadership is becoming a liability. Success requires an integrated Enterprise Leadership Team: a model we are implementing at UTMB to ensure that strategy, capital, and workforce decisions are fully synchronized across our clinical and academic missions.
In this model, transformation is not a department; it is the primary function of the executive team. We are focused on scaling novel care models and modernizing physician compensation. Furthermore, we must reframe AI. It is no longer an IT support function but a core component of executive governance. Future leaders must personally oversee the integration of AI into operations, ensuring safety, equity, and performance are managed from the top down.
Cody Walker. President of Baptist Health Medical Center, North Little Rock (Ark.): C-suites will increasingly be led by clinicians, particularly those with strong skill sets in successful change management and leveraging AI and automation technologies. System stability and sustainability will come from executive teams who actively foster trust while executing strategies focused on best-in-class patient access, maturation as a ‘payvider,’ and a maniacal focus on reducing process waste.
Tiffany Love, PhD. Associate Vice President of Nursing at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center (Lawrence, Mass.): Current financial pressure, workforce shortages, digital acceleration, and the move from volume to value are forcing healthcare executives to lead differently. We are witnessing hospital mergers continue at a significant pace. Larger systems are acquiring smaller community and rural hospitals as financially stressed facilities seek stability. This is all while artificial intelligence, digital health tools, telemedicine, and health informatics are transforming how we provide healthcare. The future of healthcare leadership is reliant upon leaders who are skilled at successfully navigating continuous change rather than one-time transformations.
Ngozi Ezike, MD. President and CEO of Sinai Chicago: With ever-evolving economic and legislative landscapes, effective healthcare delivery is more challenging than ever. Magnify that 100 times for safety net institutions like Sinai Chicago that serve patients primarily covered by Medicaid. In response, healthcare leaders need to strive for even greater levels of creativity, agility and collaboration to successfully navigate this environment over the next five years. We need new approaches and ideas to solve both new and age-old challenges in healthcare. And we need to be able to evolve more quickly than healthcare systems usually move to not only address emerging issues, but also to seize new opportunities.
At Sinai Chicago, we are rethinking, redefining and realigning our leadership structures and roles. We’ve taken a fresh approach to our COO role and reassigned responsibilities across our C-suite leadership. We’ve made an intentional effort to distinguish hospital clinical operations from physician enterprise and business development, ensuring that each vital area receives the focused leadership, priority, and strategies required to strengthen our business.
C-suite transformation will also require continued focus on partnership and collaboration. And not just with traditional healthcare partners! In these challenging times, especially for safety nets that are continually asked to do more with less, we absolutely cannot go it alone. We are focused on identifying and developing deeper partnerships with mission-driven organizations and leaders in the civic, corporate and philanthropic arenas. We are searching for and cultivating partners who will help foster and drive innovation to improve care, efficiency and patient experience, allowing us to not only maintain our mission, but secure its future for the long term.
Sharda Udassi, MD. Associate Chief Quality Officer of WVU Health System (Morgantown, W.V.): We all know and understand that the way we deliver healthcare needs to change. So health system C-suites will continue to evolve through 2030 from the old traditional operational leaders into bold, mission-driven system architects who shape how care is delivered, experienced, and sustained with cultural, economic and political environment changes. Their role will extend beyond financial performance to more stewardship of quality, safety, equity, workforce well-being, and trust, recognizing these as inseparable drivers of long-term success. The healthcare systems leadership has been dragging their feet in these areas and now with more stringent implementation of value-based care across various states is going to assure engagement of C-suites leadership in healthcare quality, safety and experience improvement with focus on improving outcomes that has been long overdue
There are growing trends of clinicians going into leadership roles, making them more effective executives as more clinical-informed and also data-fluent, leveraging digital transformation, AI, and advanced analytics to move health systems from reactive care to proactive, population-centered models. There is more focus on using these transformational changes to bring more transparency, systems thinking, and high-reliability principles. We will need to build resilient learning organizations that align strategy with purpose and deliver measurable, lasting improvements for patients, communities, and the healthcare workforce. We owe this to the communities that we serve.
Vi-Anne Antrum. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Cone Health (Greensboro, N.C.): C-suites will transform in several ways through 2030. At Cone Health, we will be welcoming a new CEO, have welcomed a new COO, and are executing on our Cone Health Strategic Vision 2030. We are instituting a new operating model. All this to say, our C-suite needs to be agile, steadfast, and empathetic as we lead through this time of exciting transformational change!
C.J. Marbley, BSN, RN. CNO of University Medical Center New Orleans; CNO and COO of New Orleans East Hospital, LCMC Health: By 2030, health system C-suites will increasingly be led by clinicians, with more physicians and nurses advancing into CEO and COO roles. As value-based reimbursement continues to prioritize clinical outcomes, throughput, and care coordination, executive leadership will need deep clinical fluency alongside operational and financial expertise.
Clinicians tend to have a shorter learning curve when acquiring business and finance competencies than non-clinical leaders do in mastering the complexities of clinical operations, team-based care, and frontline decision-making. As a result, health systems will place greater value on leaders who can seamlessly bridge clinical care delivery with enterprise strategy.
In parallel, particularly within smaller and resource-constrained hospitals, we will see continued growth in dual executive roles such as CNO/COO, CNO/CEO, and CFO/CAO. These hybrid positions will reflect the need for agile leadership models that integrate quality, operations, and financial stewardship to sustain performance in an increasingly complex healthcare environment.
Mark Brett. COO of Beacon Health System (South Bend, Ind.): The C-suite leaders of the future will need to be cultural stewards, strategic pivoters and pace setters while building a digital ecosystem.
Cultural Stewards: C-suite leaders will need to steward the mission, vision and values of their organization while navigating multi-dimensional pressures. These include resource challenges, workforce shortages, technological changes, quality oversight, regulatory complexity and compliance. They will be stewarding amid an ongoing crisis of confidence in health care.
Strategic Pivoting and Pace Setting: The pace of change in healthcare will accelerate every day moving forward. This requires C-suite leaders to cast vision, communicate effectively, connect to purpose, pivot quickly and increase the speed of organizational transformation required for future success and sustainability.
Building a Digital Ecosystem: The leaders of the future will build a system of AI adoption, responsible innovation, prove ROI and survive financially while transforming digitally. All while balancing innovation and the human connection.
Jeff Costello. CFO of Beacon Health System (South Bend, Ind.): Beacon Health System’s C-suite will continue to develop, continually refine and challenge our strategic imperatives over the now, near and far time horizons. Those imperatives include clinical excellence, great workplace, customer experience, community, smart growth and financial sustainability.
Across our imperatives, Beacon’s C-suite will continue to optimize and standardize our care delivery model. We believe leveraging technology across our strategies will play an important role in driving the best outcomes in each of these imperatives.
Beacon’s C-suite will remain responsible and accountable to continually have the pulse on the industry to ensure the organization remains proactive and nimble, navigating change in the industry with the goal to drive high quality in the most efficient manner to our patients.
Paresh Shah. Group Senior Vice President and COO of Weill Cornell Division at NewYork Presbyterian: I believe that health systems will need to rapidly adjust to and incorporate new ways of doing business, delivering care, and managing operations, as well as expanding beyond the older, traditional lines of business. We will have to think differently about how we collaborate and partner across health systems as well as with other entities. For those of us in an academic and research setting, supporting that part of our mission will require new sources of funding and more accountability.
In order to meet these challenges, the C-suite will have to do a number of things:
1) Acquire new skills and expertise in AI.
2) Develop new structures and workflows that facilitate working as a core leadership team, rather than individual portfolios.
3) See an evolution in portfolio/function to develop a stronger focus on both strategy and transformation.
4) In some places, new roles may need to be added to the c suite, in others, consolidation of some roles.
5) Actively working on nimbleness and execution will be increasingly critical over the next 5 years.
Each system/organization will have to take the time to assess its leadership structure, roles, and functions to ensure that they are designed to meet the needs of the day and of the strategy that has been developed for their growth and mission.
