Packard Children’s Names New Chief Medical Information Officer

Medical informatics specialist, pediatrician, helps lead “innovation in support of world-class patient care”

For Release: June 15, 2010

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford has announced the appointment of  Christopher Longhurst, MD, MS, FAAP, as chief medical information officer.

“We’re very pleased to have Dr. Longhurst in this role,” said Ed Kopetsky, chief information officer at Packard Children’s. “Chris is a nationally-recognized medical informatics specialist with tremendous experience in clinical transformation, electronic medical records and computer provider order entry implementation.” Longhurst becomes CMIO at an exciting time. “Our hospital has an industry-leading commitment to innovation in support of world-class patient care,” said Longhurst. “We established a tremendous foundation with the rollout of computerized physician order entry in 2007, and since that time we’ve been building on that platform by using CPOE to facilitate clinical resource management.” In his CMIO capacity, Longhurst will lead clinical information strategy and adoption and also serve on the Information Services Executive Committee.

The hospital has been long-recognized for innovations that enhance care for children and expectant mothers. “As CMIO, Dr. Longhurst will look at ways to extend our digital data to our patients and families to improve the continuum of care,” said Kopetsky. Additionally, through a partnership with Kopetsky and Paul Sharek, MD, MPH, medical director of quality management and chief clinical patient safety officer, Longhurst looks forward to studies evaluating the impact of health information technology in a clinical setting. Longhurst noted that teams at the hospital have been rigorously evaluating the outcomes of CPOE and electronic medical records, and recently received global recognition for a study that showed for the first time a “Decrease In Mortality Associated With Physician Order Entry System." Longhurst received his MD from UC Davis along with an MS in Medical Informatics, both in 2001. After completing his pediatric residency at Stanford in 2004, he became physician lead and later medical director of clinical informatics at Packard Children’s while continuing clinical duties as a pediatric hospitalist.

“Thanks to our hospital-wide commitment to innovation,” said Longhurst, “we believe we’re ready to continue the discovery of how to best use medical information to support world-class patient care.”