Update: HIMSS20 has been canceled due to the coronavirus. Read more here.

CHIME and HIMSS today jointly named Marc Probst, chief information officer at Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, the 2019 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year.

WHY IT MATTERS
Probst, who has three decades of health IT experience, has served as CIO at Intermountain for 17 years, where he has built a reputation as an inspirational leader and innovative thinker.

Among Probst's and Intermountain's innovations and achievements during his tenure there so far: his advocacy at the federal level for more forward-thinking cybersecurity strategy; the deployment of agile development programs across the organization; the creation of a Healthcare Transformation Lab to bring leading-edge technologies to the bedside faster and more efficiently; the launch of deCODE, a massive new genetics study to advance precision medicine, and the spinoff of a new healthcare company, Castell, focused on helping providers, payers, ACOs and others manage the challenges of value-based reimbursement.

Before joining Intermountain, Probst was a partner at Ernst & Young and Deloitte Consulting.

His deep IT expertise includes systems design, development and implementation, governance, operations, project management and strategic planning.

He has served on the Health IT Policy Committee, helping shape the meaningful use program in its early days, and has been a key leader at both CHIME, where he served as board chair, and HIMSS over the years.

THE LARGER TREND
The CIO of the Year award is given each year at the HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition to a IT executive who has demonstrated leadership and commitment to transforming healthcare with information and technology.

The recipient is selected jointly by the boards of CHIME and HIMSS. The award is named for John E. Gall Jr., who pioneered implementation of the first fully integrated medical system in the world in El Camino Hospital in California in the 1960s.

ON THE RECORD
"Marc has been a transformation leader blazing the trail in advancing technology to improve health and care," said HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf. "His work exemplifies what it means to be a changemaker – an innovator who rigorously challenges the status quo and empowers others to follow suit in the journey to providing better health for everyone, everywhere."

"Marc has contributed to our community in countless ways," added CHIME President and CEO Russell Branzell. "He has been instrumental in CHIME's growth, domestically and internationally. Marc taught at our very first program in India and continues to be an ambassador for CHIME around the world. He piloted our first innovation initiative and helped make Intermountain the home for CHIME Innovation. The list goes on and on, and he has done this all while running a spectacular digital enterprise at Intermountain."

Probst will be honored at HIMSS20, both on March 9, during the CHIME HIMSS CIO Forum, and on March 11 at the awards gala.