Chief Among Friends

On Chief Among Friends, your host, Dr. Chris Hobson, the Chief Medical Officer of Orion Health chats about topics ranging from technology priorities to new innovations in integrated and coordinate care to healthcare sustainability.

Meet the Host

Dr. Chris Hobson, Chief Medical Officer, Orion Health
Twitter: @drchrishobson

Dr. Hobson has 20 years’ experience as a physician working in primary and secondary care including 10 years’ experience in Family Medicine. While working as a primary care practitioner he was instrumental in establishing the largest primary care network in New Zealand, Procare, which pioneered value based contracting with the New Zealand Ministry of Health. During this time he helped develop and use an EMR with full functionality including integration of electronic lab results, radiology, CPOE and e-prescribing in day-to-day practice. Subsequently Dr. Hobson worked in senior management at South Auckland Health where he oversaw the development of several integrated care and Information Technology projects such as electronic discharge letters, chronic disease management and the national immunization register for New Zealand. He worked closely with technology vendor Orion Health during that time and decided to join the company because of the important role he saw technology play in driving health system change. Since joining Orion Health, Dr. Hobson has worked globally as Chief Medical Officer in most areas of Healthcare IT, from population level health strategy through product design and development; sales marketing and implementation. Dr. Hobson has advised and made significant contributions to multiple projects and programs on both the client and vendor side as well as both payers and providers in the US.

His key interests are in interoperability, technology strategy and population health with a major focus on Health Information Exchange, (aka Electronic Health Records in Canada.) He is also an expert on the evolving topic of e Safety. His significant international experience spanning Canada, New Zealand, Australia, UK, USA Spain and the Middle East enables Dr. Hobson to bring a great perspective for comparison of different health systems, including strategies that have worked well at other sites. Globally Dr. Hobson has participated and advised more than 25 Health Information Exchanges along with a significant number of chronic disease management, population health and care coordination projects. At Orion, Dr. Hobson leads an active team of clinicians spread across the globe and coordinates their input into products projects and other topics including e Safety. He is an active public speaker and presenter at conferences such as e – Health Canada, HIMSS, and e Health Initiative in Washington DC.