Intermountain Healthcare’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer Ryan Smith is stepping down to transition to an executive role at Graphite Health, an interoperability company co-founded by Intermountain and two other not-for-profit health systems earlier this year.
Smith, who will serve as Graphite Health’s chief operating officer, will continue to serve as Intermountain’s CIO through the first quarter of 2022 as he “ramps up in his new position,” the Salt Lake City-based health system said Tuesday. That will provide the health system with time to transition the CIO role, according to Intermountain.
As Graphite Health’s COO, Smith will report directly to company CEO Dr. Ries Robinson.
“Ryan understands the challenges of both healthcare system leaders and digital health entrepreneurs firsthand,” Robinson said in a news release. “He will ensure Graphite Health creates a solution that enables healthcare’s digital transformation.”
Intermountain, Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Presbyterian Healthcare Services and St. Louis-based SSM Health in October launched Graphite Health, a not-for-profit company that will vet and certify digital health apps according to ethics and data standards set by the company.
Graphite Health will host certified apps in a marketplace—similar to app stores—where hospitals can purchase them. The company has said it will collect a percentage of the earnings that companies make through their products being sold on the marketplace, which will go toward maintaining Graphite Health’s operations.
Smith in a news release said he’s enjoyed being involved in Graphite Health’s strategic planning as Intermountain’s CIO.
“I see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help shift digital health on an even broader scale,” he said. “From my experience, I know how critical it is for healthcare systems to have a more efficient and trusted way to adopt valuable digital health tools.”
Much of Graphite Health’s leadership team hails from its health system founders.
The company’s CEO, Robinson, also serves as chief innovation advisor and was formerly the chief innovation officer at Presbyterian. Dr. Stanley Huff, chief medical informatics officer at Intermountain, also serves as CMIO at Graphite Health. Intermountain has said it will license its medical informatics intellectual property to Graphite Health for free.
Dan Liljenquist, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Intermountain, is the board chair at Graphite Health.
Intermountain, Presbyterian and SSM each have an executive on the Graphite Health board.
Smith joined Intermountain last year after longtime CIO Marc Probst announced his retirement. Probst has since joined the executive team at Ellkay, a healthcare data archiving and interoperability company. Smith previously served as senior vice president at data warehousing and analytics company Health Catalyst and CIO at Banner Health in Phoenix.