The 50 Most Influential Physician Executives in Healthcare are presented by order in this year's ranking.

1. John Kitzhaber
Governor of Oregon, Salem

2. John Noseworthy
President and CEO, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

3. Thomas Frieden
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta

4. Brent James
Chief quality officer, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City

5. Peter Pronovost
Senior vice president for patient safety and quality, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore

6. Gary Kaplan
Chairman and CEO, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle

7. Mark Chassin
President, Joint Commission, Oak Brook Terrace, Ill.

8. Eric Topol
Chief academic officer, Scripps Health; director, Scripps Translational Science Institute, San Diego

9. Christine Cassel
Incoming president and CEO, National Quality Forum, Washington

10. Patrick Conway
Chief medical officer, CMS; director, CMS' Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, Baltimore

11. Farzad Mostashari
National coordinator for healthcare information technology, Washington

12. Regina Benjamin
U.S. surgeon general, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, Washington

13. Delos “Toby” Cosgrove
President and CEO, Cleveland Clinic

14. Francis Collins
Director, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.

15. Elliott Fisher
Director, Center for Population Health, Director of Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Lebanon, N.H.

16. Richard Gilfillan
Director, CMS' Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, Baltimore

17. Charles Sorenson
President and CEO, Intermountain Healthcare, Salt Lake City

18. Kelvin Baggett
Senior vice president and chief medical officer, Tenet Healthcare Corp., Dallas

19. David Pryor
Executive vice president, Ascension Health Alliance, St. Louis

20. Samuel Nussbaum
Executive vice president and chief medical officer, WellPoint, Indianapolis

21. Karen Bell
Chair, Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Chicago

22. Steven Safyer
President and CEO, Montefiore Medical Center, New York

23. Ram Raju
CEO, Cook County Health and Hospitals System, Chicago

24. James Madara
Executive vice president and CEO, American Medical Association, Chicago

25. Harvey Fineberg
President, Institute of Medicine, Washington

26. Robert Wachter
Professor and associate chairman, department of medicine, University of California at San Francisco

27. Barbara Paul
Senior vice president and chief medical officer, Community Health Systems, Franklin, Tenn.

28. Bruce Siegel
President and CEO, National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, Washington

29. Ralph de la Torre
Chairman and CEO, Steward Health Care System, Boston

30. Jonathan Perlin
President of clinical services and chief medical officer, HCA, Nashville

31. Darrell Kirch
President and CEO, Association of American Medical Colleges, Washington

32. Susan Turney
President and CEO, MGMA-ACMPE, Englewood, Colo.

33. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey
President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, N.J.

34. Gary Gottlieb
President and CEO, Partners HealthCare, Boston

35. Larry Wellikson
CEO, Society of Hospital Medicine, Philadelphia

36. Prem Reddy
Chairman, Prime Healthcare Services, Ontario, Calif.

37. Glenn Steele Jr.
President and CEO, Geisinger Health System, Danville, Pa.

38. Atul Gawande
Professor of surgery and professor of healthcare policy and management, Harvard University; healthcare author

39. John Hensing
Executive vice president and chief medical officer, Banner Health, Phoenix

40. Georges Benjamin
Executive director, American Public Health Association, Washington

41. Reed Tuckson
Executive vice president and chief of medical affairs, UnitedHealth Group, Minnetonka, Minn.

42. Joe Selby
Executive director, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Washington

43. William Bria
President, Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, Lake Almanor, Calif.

44. William Conway
CEO, Henry Ford Medical Group; chief quality officer, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit

45. Richard Bankowitz
Chief medical officer, Premier, Charlotte, N.C.

46. Thomas Nasca
President, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Chicago

47. Margaret Hamburg
Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Md.

48. Michael Burgess
U.S. representative (R-Texas), co-chairman, Congressional Health Care Caucus

49. Emad Rizk
President, McKesson Health Solutions, Newton, Mass.

50. Robert Grossman
CEO, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York