Allegheny Health Network Names Richard Medford, MD, as Chief Digital Information Officer

PITTSBURGH -- Allegheny Health Network (AHN) today announced the appointment of Richard Medford, MD, as the health system’s new Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO). Dr. Medford brings extensive clinical and digital expertise to the role, further positioning AHN to accelerate its digital transformation and technology-driven care initiatives.

Dr. Medford’s AHN appointment follows that of Alistair Erskine, MD, MBA, who was named Highmark Health’s Chief Information Digital Officer (CIDO) in July. Together, Drs. Erskine and Medford and John Gabrick, AHN’s vice president of clinical information systems, digital and virtual health, form the foundation of an exceptional digital health leadership team that will help establish AHN as one of the country’s most technologically innovative places to both receive care and practice medicine, said Mark Sevco, AHN president..

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Medford to the AHN team,” said Sevco. “He is an outstanding leader who brings to our organization a wealth of experience and accomplishments in leveraging data and informatics to enhance provider efficiency, clinical decision support, telemedicine and mobile health. We’re excited to have him join Dr. Erskine and John Gabrick, as we chart an exciting digital future for AHN.”

Nationally recognized for his work at the intersection of clinical medicine, artificial intelligence, and health information technology, Dr. Medford is the first physician in the United States to achieve dual fellowship training and board certification in both clinical informatics and infectious diseases, a distinction that underscores his rare combination of expertise in digital health and frontline medicine.

Dr. Medford comes to AHN from East Carolina University (ECU) Health in Greenville, North Carolina, where he served as Chief Medical Informatics and Digital Health Officer and as a clinical associate professor at the Brody School of Medicine. Prior to that position, he held key informatics leadership roles at UT Southwestern Medical Center, was an associate fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health and a clinical informatics fellow at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

In addition to his leadership roles, Dr. Medford is a well-accomplished researcher and serves as an Associate Editor of Applied Clinical Informatics, one of the field’s leading peer-reviewed journals. His academic work and editorial leadership bring a strong foundation of measurement, evidence, and rigor to his approach, ensuring that technology adoption is not only innovative but also safe, effective, and guided by data-driven insights. This expertise will be pivotal in advancing AHN’s digital transformation strategy and in deploying digital tools that truly enhance patient care and provider efficiency.

In his new role at AHN, Dr. Medford will collaborate closely with Dr. Erskine and John Gabrick, as well as other clinical and executive leaders, to drive digital health transformation, optimize technology-enabled workflows, support clinical decision-making, and enhance telehealth and mobile care capabilities. His work will help improve patient outcomes, strengthen the patient and care team experiences and support access improvements and growth across AHN’s footprint.

“I look forward to joining AHN at such a transformative time in health care,” said Dr. Medford. “It’s an honor to be part of a team so deeply committed to leveraging innovation and technology to create better experiences and better outcomes for the patients and the communities we serve.”

Originally from Toronto, Dr. Medford received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He completed an internal medicine residency at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and a fellowship in infectious diseases from the University of Ottawa.

He is triple-board-certified (internal medicine, infectious disease, and clinical informatics) and his professional affiliations include fellow positions with the American Medical Informatics Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

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