Why Top Healthcare CIOs Lead With Relationships, Not Tech

The healthcare CIO job has moved well beyond keeping systems running. Donna Roach, assistant chief digital and information officer at University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City, told Becker's Hospital Review that the strongest CIOs are measured by their relationships with executive peers, not their command of the tech stack.

That shift reflects how central technology has become to strategy. CIOs now own decisions on AI adoption, digital front doors, cybersecurity, and data that shape revenue, clinical quality, and patient experience. Roach's point is that pushing those agendas forward requires trust and credibility with the CEO, CFO, and chief medical officer, not just a well-run IT department.

In practice, that means CIOs who can translate technical tradeoffs into business terms and build coalitions across the C-suite carry more weight than those who stay in a purely operational lane. For health systems weighing large AI and digital investments, the lesson is that execution increasingly depends on how well the CIO is wired into the leadership team.