Informatics summit explores the future of digital health care

Bold thinkers, creative problem-solvers, and everyday changemakers converged on UTHealth Houston on Sept. 25 to discuss the transforming landscape of digital health care during the 2025 Center for Digital Healthcare Innovation Informatics Mission: Unstoppable summit.

The event, held at the Fayez S. and Susan K. Sarofim Research Building, focused on such topics as improving patient access to advancing automation. Originally known as the CMIO summit, it later grew and became the CDHI Informatics summit, helping to harness end-to-end digital alignments for users and patients. 

“What began four years ago as a spark of reflection has become a compass, helping us look back to measure our strides while pointing forward to the next horizon,” said Babatope Fatuyi, chief medical officer at UTHealth Houston. “The summit now stands as both a celebration of progress at UTHealth Houston and a call to amplify innovation through the Center for Digital Healthcare Innovation and our partnerships across all schools.”

Amar Yousif, MBA, vice president and chief information officer at UTHealth Houston, added, “This summit, held at the Texas Medical Center, the largest in the world, is laying the foundation for a future where clinicians, researchers, and educators use shared digital tools to deliver better care, faster discoveries, and broader access to education across Texas.”

Following the welcome by Fatuyi, Martin Citardi, MD, professor, vice dean of clinical technology, and Memorial Hermann Chair at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, set the stage for the summit. Kevin Dillon, MBA, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer at UTHealth Houston, provided the opening remarks.

The keynote speaker James Buntrock, MS, chief data officer at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, spoke on digital product development in health care during his talk, “Intrapreneurship in Action: Building Digital Health Products from Within.”  

“The CDHI summit offers a valuable opportunity for us to come together to learn, share insights, and celebrate the achievements of the past year,” said Bassel Choucair, associate vice president and deputy chief information officer at UTHealth Houston. “Each year, our keynote speaker inspires us to broaden our vision and deepen our commitment to innovation in digital medicine at UTHealth Houston.”

Later in the morning, Yousif and Zain Kazmi, MBA, associate vice chancellor and chief digital and analytics officer in Health Affairs at The University of Texas System, led the panel discussion “One UT Strategic Framework: Aligning Health, Education, and Innovation for Impact.” Choucair moderated the discussion.

Before breaking for lunch, Citardi; Stephanie W. Dixon, assistant director of strategic initiatives at UT Physicians; and James Griffiths, MD, associate vice president of healthcare IT at McGovern Medical School, led the 2025 Gold Stars/Honor Roll Recognition and panel discussion, which was moderated by Olasunkanmi Adeyinka, MD, associate professor at McGovern Medical School and chief medical information officer of ambulatory operations at UT Physicians.

In the afternoon, the following awards were given out by Fatuyi, Adeyinka, and Kristi Bradley, vice president and chief revenue cycle officer at McGovern Medical School:

• Innovation Award - Omer Anjum, PhD, assistant professor at the Center for Secure Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston
• Physician Champion of the Year - Kevin Hwang, MD – professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at McGovern Medical School
• Slicer Dicer Data Dice Champion - Hannah Tarver, Epic business intelligence applications specialist II

At the end of the day, the UTHealth Houston Center for Digital Healthcare Informatics and McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics Spotlight focused on the groundbreaking internal projects from the center and school.

“UTHealth Houston is investing in a new wave of clinically integrated AI that will turn real-world data into actionable insights, accelerating innovation, promoting efficiency, and ultimately improving outcomes for every patient we serve,” said Xiaoqian Jiang, PhD, associate vice president for medical AI, chair of the Department of Health Data Science and AI, and Christopher Sarofim Family Professor in Biomedical Informatics and Engineering at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics. “Our vision is to build an open, interoperable AI ecosystem where physicians and data scientists co-create solutions. The summit is a pivotal step toward making Houston a national hub for responsible medical AI.”

The closing session was led by Jiang and Kristen Bachman, manager of project management for enterprise IT at UTHealth Houston.