The role of chief medical officer has seen significant transformation over the last five years as the use of AI and other advanced technologies becomes more widespread in healthcare.
The CMO role is likely to continue this transformation as the shifting demands of both health systems and patients require more collaboration and adaptability from CMOs.
Two CMOs recently joined Becker’s to discuss the forces they foresee shaping the CMO position over the next five years.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: How do you think the CMO role will evolve over the next five years?
Eddy Ang, MD. CMO of University of California Los Angeles Medicare Advantage Health Plan: The CMO role is increasingly positioned at the intersection of clinical insight, data analytics, and value-based strategy. As AI/machine learning continues to transform healthcare, CMOs will play a critical role in ensuring that technology and data are used to strengthen partnerships with providers and improve member outcomes.
Jason Golbin, DO. Executive Vice President and CMO of Catholic Health (Long Island, N.Y.): The nexus of clinical operations and the financial ramifications of quality/safety/experience creates some tension in strategic objectives. When you focus on capacity management, the goal is to move patients through as safely and efficiently as possible providing high quality care. Yet, if you squeeze too hard on the throughput, it will affect your readmission, and vice versa. So there’s a delicate balance involved, yet you never want to reduce your focus on what truly matters — which is providing the safest, highest quality care with the best experience for patients and their families. So the truly effective CMO will need to understand the balance of investing in quality, safety and the human experience as well as the ROI, and be able to show all of it on a balance sheet. At Catholic Health we have a very robust collaboration between finance, operations, clinical care and quality, all calibrated to provide what we feel is the best possible balance of overall care for our patients.
