In this tech-heavy age for healthcare, more hospitals and health systems have been creating the role of chief digital officer to oversee initiatives like virtual care and remote patient monitoring.
Sometimes it's a combined position with the CIO; other times it has a different title. The focus is always how to harness technology to improve patient care.
Here are the chief digital officers (or their equivalents) for the top 10 hospitals in U.S. News & World Report's 2022-23 rankings that have the executives:
Rita Khan, Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.) (No. 1)
Ms. Khan became Mayo Clinic's first chief digital officer in 2019, previously serving as senior vice president of consumer digital for UnitedHealthcare. She is in charge of digital strategy and the Mayo Clinic Center for Digital Health.
Nader Mherabi, NYU Langone Hospitals (New York City) (No. 3)
Mr. Mherabi, the chief digital and information officer, leads technology strategy for the health system. He aims to revolutionize the digital patient and clinician experience, working with big data and advanced analytics to improve care delivery and efficiency.
Rohit Chandra, PhD, Cleveland Clinic (No. 4)
Dr. Chandra was appointed to the new role in February to oversee the IT division and accelerate the shift to digital in areas including artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning. He previously worked for tech startup Sunshine Products, Verizon and Yahoo. He has a doctor of philosophy degree in computer science from Stanford (Calif.) University.
Dean Zarriello, Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore) (tied for No. 5)
Mr. Zarriello, interim senior vice president of digital services for Johns Hopkins Medicine, also serves as interim CIO. He has been with the health system since 1997.
Peter Fleischut, MD, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York City) (No. 7)
Dr. Fleischut, senior vice president and chief transformation officer, leads enterprise clinical IT, innovation, AI and telemedicine and develops digital health services for NYP OnDemand. He joined the health system in 2010.
David Ting, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston) (No. 8)
Dr. Ting, the hospital's chief digital health officer, is also co-director of the MGH Center for Innovation in Digital HealthCare and chief medical information officer of Massachusetts General Physicians Organization. He's worked to implement virtual scribes, a centralized medication renewal process, computerized voice recognition and AI in clinical care.
Danny Sama, Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago) (No. 9)
Mr. Sama, vice president and chief digital executive for Northwestern Medicine, uses digital technology to improve the patient, physician and employee experience,through initiatives like data engineering, software development and machine learning. He previously served as analytics and chief data executive.
Michael Pfeffer, MD, Stanford (Calif.) Hospital (No. 10)
Dr. Pfeffer, who serves as CIO of Stanford Health Care and Stanford School of Medicine and an associate dean at the medical school, oversees technology and digital solutions for Stanford Health Care and School of Medicine, working to provide digitally driven care for the academic health system.