One of the nation's largest healthcare systems has officially named its new chief information officer, who will lead the IT arm of the 38-hospital health system.

 

Kaiser Permanente named Richard "Dick" Daniels its new executive vice president and chief information officer on Feb. 9. Daniels, who has held the interim position since fall 2014, will be responsible for leading the health system's IT arm, serving Kaiser's 9.6 million members.

 

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Daniels stepped into the CIO role after Kaiser Permanente CIO Phil Fasano announced he was leaving the post last September to serve as CIO at AIG. Most recently Daniels held the position of senior vice president of enterprise shared services at KP, which involved end user services, pharmacy operations and national facilities services. 

 

Daniels joined Kaiser back in 2008, serving in the role of IT senior vice president and business information officer of health plan and hospital operations, where he was responsible for enterprise architecture, analytics, IT compliance and pharmacy IT. Prior to Kaiser, he also held the post of senior vice president and divisional CIO for Capital One.

 

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"Information technology plays a central role in our ability to consistently provide high-quality, affordable and accessible care and coverage to millions of Americans," said Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Tyson, in a statement. "With (Daniels') proven leadership skills and expertise in IT, Dick is the ideal person to lead the critical work we are doing to ensure we continually meet the evolving needs of our members, customers and consumers."

 

Just this January, Kaiser Permanente announced that 350 of its ambulatory clinics earned the HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 Ambulatory Award, which recognized the health system's advanced use of its HealthConnect electronic health record.