Chief innovation officer
Boston Children’s Hospital

Brownstein co-founded Circulation, a non-emergency medical transportation company. The program integrated with Uber, creating a customizable, HIPAA-compliant digital transportation platform. Eventually, Circulation started to operate its own fleet. Last year, Circulation was in use by health systems in 45 states. It accesses scheduling information and helps put a dent in the nearly 3 million missed appointments annually due to lack of transportation. Circulation was recently acquired by LogistiCare Solutions.

President
UnitedHealthcare Clinical Services

Hagan oversees UnitedHealthcare’s growth in digital health. His team pulls data from a variety of sources to create personalized care plans for members. The program helps patients avoid unnecessary hospitalizations. Diabetics, for instance, had a 27% drop in hospital visits in the first year of participation. He also oversees community partnerships that tap into data to address social determinants. Between January 2017 and the first quarter of 2019, UnitedHealthcare provided 682,000 referrals to social services for Medicare Advantage members.

Senior vice president of network development and innovation
Children’s Health

Hall-Barrow leads Children’s Health’s Virtual Health program. The program expanded access to care for over 70,000 students in Texas and helped decrease absenteeism rates—75% of caregivers said that the child would have missed at least a half day of school without the program. In 2018, Children’s Health expanded the program to behavioral health. The telehealth program is in 116 schools; tele-behavioral health is in 24 schools, and counting.

Chief clinical transformation officer
Ochsner Health System

Milani spearheads innovationOchsner, an innovation lab and accelerator, which, among other things has created new ways to care for patients with chronic disease. Patients can send real-time data from their smartphones directly to their electronic health record. Milani also launched the O Bar. Modeled after Apple’s Genius Bar, the initiative helps patients assess various apps and products for their condition. Patients have benefited from these initiatives—71% of hypertension patients were able to get their blood pressure under control within 90 days, compared with 31% in usual care.

Executive vice president and chief administrative officer
Memorial Healthcare System

Muhart led a team that created a price transparency tool. It’s part of the health system’s broader Right to Know initiative, which arms patients with information to make informed decisions. The price transparency tool offers out-of-pocket cost estimates on more than 330 procedures. In the fourth quarter of 2018 alone, there were 7,000 searches. Of the 307 price quotes given, Memorial was able to confirm 24% of consumers had the exact procedure done and 42% of the consumers has a closely related procedure done. Net revenue was $1.5 million from those patients.

Chairman and emergency medicine physician-in-chief
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine

Sharma has implemented several programs to improve emergency care, including ED Express Care. This program treats low-acuity patients via telehealth. Patients are seen within 35 to 40 minutes, versus the average wait of two hours in an emergency department. Through NYP’s OnDemand app and kiosks, patients can have video visits with ED physicians. Under Sharma’s leadership, the health system tallied 40,000 ED visits via telemedicine in 2018. Patient-satisfaction scores for the telehealth programs are high, 4.8 out of 5.

Medical director
Aledade’s accountable care organization in Kansas

Brull leads Aledade’s accountable care organization in Kansas. A key innovation she implemented is the “Roadmap to Awesomeness.” It’s an improvement tool for practices to assess data and follow best practices. The ACO is able to tap into real-time data to address gaps in patient care. The road map helped Brull’s own solo medical practice in Plainville, Kan., reduce ED utilization for diabetic patients. Overall, the ACO cut hospital admissions by 23% for congestive heart failure patients and reduced ED visits by 11% in 2017 for Medicare patients.

Senior vice president and chief community health officer
Kaiser Permanente

Choucair’s innovations have reached multiple populations in Kaiser’s membership and beyond. Among other things, he leads Kaiser’s $200 million effort to increase access to affordable housing. Through the system’s Thrive initiatives, he’s helping connect patients with other services to address social determinants of health. He also oversees the organization’s research into preventing gun violence, an effort launched in 2018.

Chief population health officer
Oak Street Health

With an eye toward reducing readmissions, Crenshaw developed Transitions-in-Care, a new module within Oak Street Health’s IT platform. It gives clinicians a more detailed view of patient data, pulling from nearly 1,300 datasets, allowing them to take proactive steps to reduce the risk of readmission. As a result, Oak Street has seen a 15% drop in year-over-year 30-day readmissions since 2017. And Oak Street’s readmission rate is 40% better than the average reported by the CMS.

CEO
Ayin Health Solutions
President of population health management
Providence St. Joseph Health

Medows leads efforts to address not just population health broadly, but the impact of social determinants on care. Her team has instituted innovations that have reduced avoidable emergency department visits, especially for the Medicaid population. They’ve also reduced length of stay and directed patients to lower-cost care sites. Along with driving an ambitious population health strategy at Providence St. Joseph, Medows leads Ayin Health Solutions, a subsidiary that works with payers, providers, employers and government to reduce costs.

Senior vice president of community health and equity and chief wellness and diversity officer
Henry Ford Health System

In Detroit, the infant death rate for African-American babies remains twice as high as the rate for white babies. To address this problem, Wisdom founded the Henry Ford Health System’s Women-Inspired Neighborhood Network. The program uses midwives, social workers and others to connect with African-American mothers to address social determinants of health. Since launching, there have been no preventable infant deaths among program participants. Only 7% of babies were born with low birth weights, compared with 14% across Detroit; 94% of mothers initiated breastfeeding.

CEO
Harris Center for Mental Health

To improve access to mental health services for people in the criminal justice system, Young created a pre-charge jail diversion center. Instead of shuffling people with mental health conditions accused of a low-level misdemeanor in and out of jail, they are taken to a diversion center for assessment, treatment and social services. During its first nine months, the center diverted 1,300 people away from jail to healthcare; 67% of those diverted had no new jail bookings; 25% received outpatient and/or residential services after release.

Associate chief medical information officer
University of Utah Health

Kawamoto has been a leader in interoperability, having served on national task forces and advisory committees. At the University of Utah he launched the Reimagine EHR initiative. He’s worked with such companies as Google and Apple to develop an app-based system that allows data to move freely and boosts the power of the electronic health record. The initiatives have earned $25 million in grant funding. Apps have been launched to improve care for breast cancer patients, for predictive analytics, and for newborns at risk of brain damage.

Senior vice president and chief clinical officer
Nemours Children’s Health System

Lawless created Nemours’ Clinical Logistics Center, a virtual command center that measures and analyzes every patient’s vital signs. It's staffed by paramedics and nurses. In operation since 2012, the center recently began monitoring patients to reduce sepsis deaths. There have been zero unexpected deaths in patients being monitored for sepsis and a 35% improvement in sepsis response time rate. Pediatric sepsis fell from 2% to 0.05%.

Executive director
Intermountain Healthcare Precision Genomics

Under Nadauld’s leadership, Intermountain is using genomics in new and innovative ways. One breakthrough development decodes the genetic makeup of a patient’s unique cancer cells, allowing for more personalized treatment. Among some of the care improvements the Intermountain team has achieved: a 27% reduction in negative outcomes for blood clot patients and a 250% improvement in readmission rates for patients suffering from depression. Nadauld launched a study using a half-million DNA samples to discover new connections between genetics and disease.

Chief patient safety officer
CommonSpirit Health

At Dignity Health (now part of the newly formed CommonSpirit Health), Pelletreau implemented an electronic trigger system to identify patients at risk of harm. Under her leadership, Dignity saw a 73% drop in anticoagulation, a 32% decline in hypoglycemic events, and a 32% decline in C. diff infections, among other improvements. In her new role at CommonSpirit, she'll oversee implementation of similar programs across 142 hospitals.

President and chief technology officer
Clover Health

Toy has focused on seniors living with complex health issues. Oftentimes the current delivery model can’t adequately care for these patients. He developed a risk-scoring process that monitors patients and helps clinicians develop personalized care plans. The program has an 85% success rate in identifying patients at risk of being admitted to the hospital within the next 28 days. Clover also uses real-time data to identify patients who have missed a doctor’s appointment; a nurse practitioner follows up with those patients.

Chief medical information officer
Houston Methodist

Desai launched a program that provided clinical and financial data at the point of care. During a 90-day pilot, clinicians saw real-time, patient-specific cost and risk data for medications, labs and radiology. Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital saved $717,000 since December 2018. The average cost savings is $105 per admission. The program is being rolled out systemwide, with predicted savings of $18 million to $20 million. Patient safety is also a factor; only medication alerts approved by the system’s pharmacy and therapeutics committee display.

Senior vice president of operations
Wake Forest Baptist Health

Emmerich oversaw implementation of a real-time location system program that allows clinicians to see where and when equipment is in use. Real-time technology also keeps patients informed of wait times. An automated temperature-control system has been deployed for more than 1,100 temperature-controlled units that store vaccines, insulin and blood, among other things. The asset-management program has generated more than $3.5 million in savings by avoiding equipment purchases. Wait times have dropped by 50% because of the real-time tracking system.

Associate vice president
ProMedica Innovations

To solve the problem of claims denials, Hammerling and his team worked to develop a solution called I/O Surg. It allows for the correct billing code and patient status to be submitted in just two clicks. During the first six months of implementation in 2017, the system reduced claims denials by $1.36 million. As use of the tool is expanded to other service lines and the overall revenue cycle, reimbursement is expected to climb and staff will spend less time chasing denials.

Chief information officer
UCHealth

Among the innovations Hess has pioneered at UCHealth is a machine-learning initiative that not only created efficiencies in the operating room, but increased revenue by $10 million. It redesigned scheduling across the system to better manage OR availability. The real-time program gave surgeons greater control of scheduling procedures. Hess also launched an innovation center, which uses data to reduce variation and improve workflow.