Penn Medicine Creates New Role Overseeing Data and Technology Solutions

Penn Medicine in Philadelphia has created a new role of senior vice president for data and technology solutions that will oversee the offices of the chief information officer, chief medical information officer and chief analytics officer.

Appointed to the new role is Mitchell Schnall, M.D., Ph.D., following two terms as chair of Radiology in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. He will spearhead the health system’s efforts to understand new tools and approaches and determine how best to implement them across the health system to improve the provider experience, boost health outcomes for patients, and drive efficiency across the health system. These include tools for automating patient access, monitoring, and self-serve transactions.

Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise with more than 49,000 faculty and staff.

“Penn Medicine is excited to seize emerging opportunities to use technology in ways that will transform the health care industry,” said University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) CEO Kevin Mahoney, in a statement. “Dr. Schnall is a talented and visionary leader who will help us draw on our institution’s longstanding culture of innovation and continuous learning in this new space, and provide a road map for health systems across the nation.”

During his two terms as chair of radiology,  Schnall doubled both the size of the department and its research funding portfolio. He developed training programs and funding pathways for clinician-scientists in Radiology, unified academic programs across UPHS’s Philadelphia hospitals, and created a single Penn Medicine Radiology residency that the health system says has been named the top radiology program in the nation.

 Penn Medicine also credits Schnall with developing a strong collaboration between the department’s community-based physicians and its academic programs. Additionally, he built a framework for “One Penn Medicine Radiology,” which he will continue to lead as he assumes his new role. He will continue to serve in a leadership role in the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group.