Chutes & Ladders—Mayo Clinic picks up new chief technology officer; Biofourmis grabs Amazon's Majmudar

Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please submit the good news—or the bad—from your shop, and we will feature it here at the end of each week


Mayo Clinic

Vish Anantraman, M.D.
(LinkedIn)

Vish Anantraman, M.D., announced this week on LinkedIn that he is joining Mayo Clinic as its new chief technology officer.

At the top of Anantraman’s résumé is more than 11 years in technology leadership positions at New York’s Northwell Health. He was most recently tapped as the provider’s chief technology innovation officer in 2019 and led a team exploring novel areas such as voice-enabled workflow systems, intelligent bots for physician burnout and continuous patient monitoring-driven insights.

Prior to Northwell, Anantraman also held roles at electronic medical record firm Eclipsys (now merged with Allscripts) and co-founded Dimagi, an information technology company developing software and systems for low-resource settings.

Anantraman received his doctorate from St. Johns Medical College and later earned a medical informatics master's from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also served as a research fellow at Harvard University.


Biofourmis

profile photo of Maulik Majmudar, M.D.
Maulik Majmudar, M.D.
(Biofourmis)

Maulik Majmudar, M.D., is departing his position at Amazon for a new role as chief medical officer at digital therapeutics company Biofourmis.

Majmudar had spent his past three years at the large tech company helping build the Amazon Halo wearable, which launched last year.

Now, he’s charged with overseeing Biofourmis’ product management, data science and clinical affairs, the latter of which will have a particular focus on clinical validation and demonstrable outcomes. In the near term, he’ll be helping the company offer in-home provider services.

Prior to his time at Amazon, Majmudar served as associate director of the Healthcare Transformation Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. He had also served on Biofourmis’ clinical advisory board since 2015 and on its board of directors since 2019.


Einstein Healthcare Network

Ken Levitan
(Einstein Healthcare
Network)

Ken Levitan’s roles as the interim president and CEO of Einstein Healthcare Network have given way to official appointments from the health system’s board of trustees.

Levitan had been working as Einstein’s chief administrative officer before filling in the open space. In that role, he oversaw strategic partnerships and alliances while holding responsibility over a bevy of departments—human resources, information services and government relations, to name a few.

Levitan also spent a decade at Einstein earlier in his career before stepping away for an executive director position at Ernst & Young’s healthcare provider practice in 2015.

In his newest roles, Levitan will be guiding the health system through the end of its merger with Jefferson Health, another Philadelphia system. He succeeds Barry Freedman, who had retired in December.


Atrium Health

Vishal Bhalla
(Atrium Health)

Vishal Bhalla has been appointed senior vice president and chief experience officer for nonprofit health system Atrium Health. He will also have an additional role as the chief human resource officer for its central and south Georgia hub, Atrium Health Navicent.

The roles come with a wealth of responsibilities for Bhalla. As chief experience officer, he will be driving patient, provider, teammate and volunteer experience strategy across the full system. For Navicent, he’ll be executing human resources strategies such as an expansion of virtual capabilities across its existing market and future regional partners.

Bhalla was previously the vice president and chief experience officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas. He holds positions on The Beryl Institute’s patient experience board, HR Exchange Network’s advisory board and the Patient Experience Journal’s editorial board.

Bhalla will step into his new roles on May 17.


> Centene Corporation picked up Drew Asher as its new executive vice president and chief financial officer, replacing Jeffrey Schwaneke.

> Carbon Health, a primary care startup, has reportedly poached Apple Health’s head of strategic initiatives, Myoung Cha. He is said to be in line to become the startup’s president of home-based care and chief strategy officer.

> Ro, a consumer-friendly telehealth and wellness brand, recently named Scott Bachand as its chief information security officer.

> The American Medical Informatics Association has appointed Tanya Tolpegin as its new CEO.

> Verato, an identity resolution technology company, has tapped Clay Ritchey as its new CEO.

> Methodist Healthcare has announced Enrique Bernal as its chief financial officer.

> Zing Health, a physician-led Medicare Advantage HMO plan, brought on Vince Lanni as executive vice president of broker relations and telesales.

> Zipari, a health insurance consumer experience tech company, added Matthew Crumley as chief financial officer and Julie Coviello as chief customer officer.

> CareCentrix, a post-acute care coordination company, announced former Livongo Health President Jennifer Schneider, M.D., as its newest strategic adviser.

> Medisafe, a digital therapeutics company, named Brian Peterson as chief of strategy and partnerships. 

> Lirio, maker of an AI-powered behavior change product, has named Amy Bucher, Ph.D., as vice president of behavioral design.