CommonSpirit Health, which was formed from the February 2019 merger of Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health, has joined the growing list of large health systems looking outside healthcare for help with digital transformation. The $29 billion nonprofit Catholic health system operating in 21 states has named Suja Chandrasekaran, formerly with Kimberly-Clark Corp., its first senior executive vice president, chief information and digital officer.
Among health systems recently naming chief digital officers from other sectors is Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, which named Prat Vemana, formerly with The Home Depot as its first chief digital officer. Other examples include Aaron Martin, chief digital officer at Seattle-based Providence St. Joseph Health, who previously worked at Amazon, and Eduardo Conrado, chief digital officer at St. Louis-based Ascension, who came to Ascension from Motorola, where he served as chief strategy and innovation officer. (Conrado’s title at Ascension was recently changed from chief digital officer to chief strategy and innovation officer.)
One of Chandrasekaran’s big tasks will be to create interoperability between the technology capabilities of the formerly independent health systems. The health system said she would redesign business processes with technology and operating models that connect the 150,000 employees and 25,000 physicians across the different geographies and communities of CommonSpirit Health, in addition to designing digital capabilities to transform the patient experience. She will seek to lead the integration and modernization of technology systems to connect the health system’s 142 hospitals and more than 700 care sites.
Besides Kimberly-Clark, Chandrasekaran’s experience includes IT leadership roles at Walmart Inc., Nestle S.A., and The Timberland Co.
