Who: Dr. Octavio Diaz, 57
New role: Chief medical officer at Tenet Healthcare Corp., a 79-hospital system based in Dallas.
Background: Diaz, an emergency medicine physician, is CMO for Tenet's Florida and Northeast regions. He joined Tenet from Vanguard Health Systems in 2008.
Facing uncertainty: Providers are grappling with the shaky future of the ACA under a Trump administration. “Millions more Americans are enjoying healthcare coverage today ... and it would be difficult for anyone to think that would go backward,” he said. “Not knowing the specifics, we need to continue to concentrate on the quality and efficiency of healthcare.”
Better outcomes: As CMO, Diaz is tasked with ensuring the safety and quality of care, which comes from relying on evidence-based best practices and fostering better physician-nurse collaboration, he said. The key is “transparency and communication, and making sure our healthcare workers understand the processes and the goals we have to improve our patients' outcomes,” he said.
Staying connected: “Our greatest opportunity in healthcare today is staying connected to the fast-paced advances in medical technology and therapeutics, as well as the increasing savviness of the consumer who has access to information that wasn't available several years ago,” Diaz said.