John Halamka, M.D., one of the highest-profile health IT leaders over the last decade, is leaving Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
A prolific writer and speaker, Halamka most recently was executive director of the Health Technology Exploration Center for Beth Israel Lahey Health in Massachusetts. Previously, he was chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for more than 20 years. He also was the International Healthcare Innovation Professor at Harvard Medical School. He remains chairman of New England Healthcare Exchange Network Inc. and is a practicing emergency medicine physician.
As the leader for innovation at Beth Israel Lahey Health, he oversaw digital health relationships with industry, academia and government worldwide. As a Harvard Medical School professor, he served the George W. Bush administration, the Obama administration and governments around the world planning their healthcare IT strategies. In his role at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, he was responsible for all clinical, financial, administrative and academic IT. Halamka also runs Unity Farm in Sherborn, Mass., and is the caretaker for 250 animals, 30 acres of agricultural production, and a cidery and winery.
Halamka has been named president of “Mayo Clinic Platform” starting Jan. 1, 2020. A January 2019 story in the Rochester, Minn. Post Bulletin described something about Mayo’s concept of creating a “platform” to pave the way to transform health care and help extend the clinic’s global reach.
The newspaper article quoted Mayo Clinic CEO Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., as saying, “We’re in the earliest stages of creating a health care-centric platform that is built around clinical knowledge. This is really important for us. We’re committed to this global collaboration.” The article said Mayo Clinic cites Google, AirBNB and Uber as examples of firms that use such platforms. Such a platform could use artificial intelligence to find more efficient and cost-effective ways to treat patients, as well as identifying potentially valuable business opportunities, the article noted.
In a blog post, Halamka said that as an adviser to many startups, incubators, and accelerators, he has seen technology, policy and staffing barriers to innovation. "Sometimes academic medical centers can take as long as 18 months to formalize a proof of concept project," he wrote. "What if a Platform of technology, policies and people were able to radically shorten the time to evaluate emerging companies and created an 'innovation factory' for collaboration? That's how I think about the Mayo Clinic Platform opportunity."
In September 2019, Mayo Clinic announced a 10-year partnership making Google Cloud the cornerstone of its digital transformation.
Through its partnership with Google, Mayo Clinic said it would develop and deploy new machine learning models designed to improve treatment precision and clinical outcomes of diseases.
With the help of Google, Mayo Clinic said it would transform the way it advances virtual care with AI-enabled digital diagnostics. Mayo also will leverage Google technology to boost its ability to conduct medical research.
"Dr. Halamka has a proven track record of success in innovation and value creation," Farrugia said in a statement. "His extensive experience and network will help power the Mayo Clinic Platform forward to benefit our patients and to support Mayo Clinic's path for the future."
In addition, Clark Otley, M.D., has been named chief medical officer for Mayo Clinic Platform. He is a professor of dermatology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science; a physician in the division of dermatologic surgery; medical director for the Department of Business Development; and president of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.
