30 Healthcare IT Influencers Worth a Follow in 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world and has had a lasting impact on healthcare technology adoption since March 2020. Many patients now expect digital-first methods of care delivery, and that appetite for technology is unlikely to change. Many clinicians and other support staff have also grown accustomed to digital health tools such as clinical mobility solutions, EHR integration and telehealth.
The successful implementation of these technologies depends on cross-team conversations and holistic approaches to clinician workflows. To keep you updated on the latest trends and solutions influencing the industry, HealthTech has compiled a list of 30 top healthcare IT influencers who offer valuable insights into successful technology implementations.
Did your blog, podcast or account make the list? If so, be sure to grab our healthcare IT influencer cover image for your Twitter page to share the news with your followers!
Atanasov is a principal investigator at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Patient Safety at the Medical University of Vienna. He specializes in innovations in molecular medicine and digital health, topics on which he’s written more than 200 papers. Atanasov is active on Twitter, where he has more than 115,000 followers.
Dr. Butte is the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor and inaugural Director of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also the chief data scientist for the University of California Health system, which includes 20 health professional schools, six medical centers and 10 hospitals.
Moscovitch is the senior manager of healthcare and AWS public policy at Amazon Web Services. He previously was the project director for health IT at The Pew Charitable Trusts. Moscovitch tweets about public health policy.
Dr. Meskó is director of The Medical Futurist Institute, a company that helps to understand digital technology and bring healthcare into the 21st century. He has been covered by dozens of top news organizations, including CNN and The New York Times. With more than 5 million visitors to his website, he is recognized as one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices in Healthcare.
Farr is a health tech investor at OMERS Ventures, with expertise in behavioral health, telemedicine, electronic medical records and women's health. Previously, she was a health and technology reporter for CNBC.
Dr. Bennett is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He tweets about the physician workforce, LGBTQ health and HIV research.
Williams is CEO of Manifest MedEx, a nonprofit health information network based in California. Williams served as a senior adviser to the Obama administration on health innovation and technology from 2012 to 2016.
Dr. Gilman, an Iraq War veteran, is an emergency medicine physician and public health advocate. At the beginning of the pandemic in New York City, he took to social media to raise awareness and fight misinformation by memorializing those killed by COVID-19 and sharing his experience on the front lines.
Dr. Sands is a primary care physician, consultant and speaker. He began his career at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he trained in clinical informatics. Dr. Sands holds an academic appointment at Harvard Medical School and maintains a primary care practice that has implemented much of the health IT that he developed while at Beth Israel. He is the founder and board co-chair of the Society for Participatory Medicine and is active on Twitter, where he tweets about healthcare and health IT.
Chou is the senior vice president and CIO of Harris Health System. An industry expert and keynote speaker, Chou has been mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, HIMSS Media and Modern Healthcare.
Dr. Hilton is an anesthesiologist at the University of Virginia. She is also the co-founder and medical director of GOODSTOCK Consulting, which connects with hospitals, businesses, nonprofits and social service agencies to produce measurable health changes for underserved communities. She also contributes to the GOODSTOCK’s “The B Word Unpacked” podcast, which unpacks B words that affect women — especially Black women — every day.
Dr. Topol is the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and also executive vice president and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. He is the author of Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again.
Dr. Nayyar currently serves as the executive medical director and general manager of healthcare and life sciences at Salesforce. She has been named one of the “26 Smartest People in Health IT” by Becker's Hospital Review and ranked among the “Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare. Nayyar is a popular public speaker who has been featured on CNN and ABC News, and has appeared in The Washington Post and The Huffington Post.
Health Unchained hosts conversations with blockchain experts and healthcare professionals who are working to disrupt the health industry. Topics include artificial intelligence, Internet of Medical Things, telemedicine, augmented and virtual reality, and wearable devices.
HIT Like a Girl — which bills itself as “more than a podcast” — amplifies the voices of women in healthcare and health IT (HIT). Episodes often highlight specific women within the healthcare space, examining their experiences, initiatives and expertise. An affiliated community provides women in healthcare a place to engage with each other and offer real talk and advice.
Shafrin is senior managing director at FTI Consulting. He has over 15 years of experience in health economics research and has served as an adviser to a variety of healthcare organizations. Shafrin is also the founder and editor of the Healthcare Economist blog, where he provides an analysis of issues in healthcare.
Terry is the founder and CEO of GE Healthcare's Clinical Command Centers. He and his team help top-performing healthcare organizations achieve even better outcomes and efficiency by re-engineering clinical operations and leveraging real-time healthcare. He contributes to the company's Real Time Healthcare Podcast and is active on LinkedIn.
Dr. Joe wears many hats, including CEO of Vanguard.Health and host of the company's weekly interactive talk show, MedTech Insights, which explores digital health trends.
Dr. Halamka is president of Mayo Clinic Platform, where he leads a portfolio of new digital platform businesses focused on transforming healthcare by using artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and an ecosystem of partners to support the Mayo Clinic’s digital health initiatives. Halamka also runs the blog Geek Doctor: Dispatch from the Digital Health Frontier.
Flanagan is vice president of digital transformation and CIO of Utah Valley University, where he is also a professor of computer science. He blogs about digital transformation within healthcare.
Dr. Pho founded KevinMD.com in 2004. Since then, he has become a prominent voice within the healthcare space, cited by publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He tweets about issues facing physicians to his more than 160,000 Twitter followers.
Leary is the director of innovation and a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, focusing on innovation and technology. She is host of the program's Amplify Nursing podcast, which features conversations with nurses leading the way in nursing science, policy and innovation.
Kail is an adviser within the healthcare technology space. He focuses on blockchain, artificial intelligence, DevOps, cloud technology and cybersecurity.
Dr. Boyd is a pediatrician, public health advocate and scholar. She is the director of strategy and equity at California Children's Trust, a children’s health advocacy group. In partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Black Coalition Against COVID and UnidosUS, Boyd co-developed THE CONVERSATION: Between Us, About Us, a national campaign to bring credible information about COVID-19 vaccines directly to Black and Hispanic communities.
Dr. Khozin is the executive vice president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and CEO of ASCO's CancerLinQ, a nonprofit health technology company focused on improving quality of care, advancing biomedical research and improving health outcomes for all patients with cancer. He is also a research affiliate at MIT.
Shah is a digital health/life sciences entrepreneur focused on care delivery innovation and lifecycle management. He is the founder of Netspective Media, which publishes The Healthcare Guys, a blog about health IT, medical devices and life sciences IT.
Maynard is a healthcare technology strategist with a special focus on women's health technology.
Dr. Trivedi is an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and instructor at Harvard Medical School. She is a founding member and leader of Core IM, a virtual medical community focused on internal medicine, and chief executive producer of the Core IM podcast. She is also a contributor to The Curbsiders podcast.
Dr. Tsai is the director of clinical care redesign at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on understanding the impact of health policy on achieving value in the healthcare system by reducing spending and improving outcomes.
After several years as a healthcare journalist, Zajc began the Faces of Digital Health podcast, which explores the speed at which healthcare systems around the world are adopting digital transformation. In addition to hosting the podcast, Zajc is the MedsClub community developer at healthcare IT company Better.
