Cerner names Dr. David Feinberg president and CEO
The longtime health IT leader, who has served in top roles at Google Health and Geisinger, will take the reins October 1. William Zollars has been appointed chairman of Cerner’s board of directors.
Feinberg, who will also serve as president, will take charge on October 1, 2021 – succeeding previous CEO Brent Shafer, who announced plans to step down back in May.
Shafer, of course, had succeeded Cerner’s founder and longtime CEO, the late Neal Patterson.
While Feinberg will serve as a member of the company’s board of directors, Cerner announced that it will separate the roles of chairman and CEO, with William Zollars appointed as the new independent board chairman.
The board also announced that Cerner President Donald Trigg will leave the company.
Feinberg has held many top leadership positions across the healthcare and technology industries over the past two and a half decades.
Most recently, he was vice president at Google Health, where he helped integrate groups from across Google and Alphabet, with a focus on applying artificial intelligence to an array of complex healthcare use cases.
Before that, he was president and CEO of Geisinger, where he helped innovate the Pennsylvania health system’s IT platforms, broaden its analytics initiatives and advance its precision medicine efforts.
Feinberg spent more than 20 years at UCLA, including eight as CEO of UCLA Health, and served in various other technology and leadership roles at UCLA Health Sciences, UCLA Hospital System and UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
“I am honored to join Cerner and look forward to working closely with Cerner’s talented associates as we continue to profitably grow the business by driving global healthcare transformation,” said Feinberg in a statement.
“Throughout my career, I’ve been guided by the goal of improving patient health and reducing the complexity of the healthcare system. I am thrilled to join a company that is so uniquely well-positioned to provide technology solutions that enable clinicians to take better care of patients while driving better clinical, operational and financial outcomes for organizations of all sizes.”
THE LARGER TREND
Cerner announced that it would be launching a search for a new CEO on May 5. It was described at the time as a joint decision between Shafer and Cerner’s board – with Shafer having completed his role as a “bridge” between Patterson’s formative 40-year tenure and the health IT giant’s forward-looking plans for future growth. Since then, Cerner has made an array of new hires across a wide variety of top leadership roles.
Feinberg joined Google Health in 2019 after an accomplished four years at Geisinger.
In a 2016 interview with Healthcare IT News, reflecting on his first year at the Danville, Pennsylvania-based healthcare delivery pioneer, Feinberg offered some insights into his philosophy. Patient experience, he said, “drives everything.”
ON THE RECORD
“We are fortunate to have someone with Dr. Feinberg’s skills, vision and operational expertise to lead Cerner at such a pivotal time in our evolution,” said Zollars in a statement. “We are thrilled to welcome him to the Cerner family and look forward to benefiting from his insights and leadership as we continue evolving and executing our strategies.”
“Cerner will be well-served under Dr. Feinberg’s capable leadership,” added Shafer, noting that his “patient-centric mindset, and organizational leadership experience make him ideally qualified to lead the company through its next chapter. I am delighted to work closely with Dr. Feinberg as we begin the transition.”
