The role of chief information officer became vital during the pandemic as hospital officials looked to them to provide their prowess of data knowledge to treat an influx of patients. Below are brief biographies of the CIOs at the hospitals that took the top 10 spots in U.S. News & World Report's 2021-22 best hospital rankings.
1. Cris Ross, Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.)
Mr. Ross has been with Mayo Clinic since 2012. He also serves on the board of directors of HIMSS, a nonprofit organization that works to improve health equity. At Mayo Clinic, Mr. Ross helped reimagine IT strategy, lead an enterprise-wide EHR convergence program, developed partnerships and initiated major innovation programs in data, analytics and machine learning.
2. Matthew Kull, Cleveland Clinic
Mr. Kull was appointed CIO of Cleveland Clinic in 2020. He oversees the clinic's information technology strategy, clinical partners and caregivers. Before he served as CIO, Mr. Kull was associate chief information officer of the information technology division of Cleveland Clinic.
3. Ellen Pollack, UCLA Hospital System
Ms. Pollack is the interim CIO of UCLA Hospital System. She also serves as the chief nursing informatics officer. She has been with UCLA Hospital System since 1993.
4. Dean Zarriello, Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore)
Mr. Zarriello has been with John Hopkins since 1997. He is in charge of data centers, networking, telecommunications, cloud computing, client technology services, servers, storage, collaboration, messaging and directory services, help desk operations and the infrastructure project management office. He was involved in all six Epic integration projects for John Hopkins.
5. Chris Coburn, Massachusetts General Brigham (Boston)
Mr. Coburn is in charge of a 125-person team that commercializes the capabilities and discoveries of Massachusetts General Brigham. Under his leadership, commercial revenue exceeds $130 million annually. Mr. Coburn and his team are also responsible for managing a $200 million venture fund.
6. Daniel Barchi, NewYork-Presbyterian (New York City)
Mr. Barchi, who is also the health system's group senior vice president, oversees strategic vision and management of information technology, innovation, analytics, artificial intelligence, telemedicine and pharmacy for NewYork-Presbyterian. Before arriving at NewYork-Presbyterian, he served as senior vice president and chief information officer of Yale New Haven Health System and Yale School of Medicine.
7. Craig Kwiatkowski, PharmD, Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles)
Dr. Kwiatkowski is also the health system's interim senior vice president of enterprise information services. He is in charge of clinical technology and information technology strategy. He is a past recipient of the Cedars-Sinai President's Award.
8. Nader Mherabi, NYU Langone (New York City)
Mr. Mherabi is also the executive vice president and vice dean of the health system. He is in charge of all information technology for NYU Langone. He previously served as vice president for IT product solutions and chief technology officer for NYU Langone.
9. Joe Bengfort, UCSF Health Medical Center (San Francisco)
Mr. Bengfort is also the senior vice president of information technology and associate vice chancellor at UCSF. He is in charge of UCSF Health, research, education, administration and strategic information technology initiatives at the University of California health system. He joined UCSF in 2011.
10. Doug King, Northwestern Memorial HealthCare (Chicago)
Mr. King is also senior vice president of information services Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He is in charge of providing strategic leadership for technology initiatives. He also helps lead the Northwestern Medicine Innovation Center.