Christopher Longhurst, MD, MS
Chief Clinical Innovation Officer;
Executive Director, Center for Health Innovation
Christopher Longhurst MD, MS, is the chief clinical and innovation officer (CCIO) at UC San Diego Health. In this role, Dr. Longhurst leads UC San Diego Health’s digital strategy, overseeing new advanced technologies, data-driven models and clinical research to improve quality outcomes for patients. He works alongside leaders at UC San Diego Health, the School of Medicine and UC Health to improve care delivery and enhance the health system's reputation for delivering safe and innovative patient-centered care.
With a rich background in medicine and informatics, Dr. Longhurst spearheads groundbreaking initiatives that drive positive change in the digital healthcare landscape, ultimately improving the patient experience and outcomes.
Dr. Longhurst serves as the executive director of the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Center for Health Innovation at UC San Diego Health. The Center focuses on adapting, developing, and implementing transformative health technologies, from wearables to sensors, mobile apps, innovative new health service models powered by AI, and more. He collaborates with providers, industry leaders, and public companies to co-design solutions that meet patient needs.
By embracing and promoting digital innovations such as telemedicine, remote monitoring, and predictive analytics, he is committed to helping transform the way healthcare is delivered. As an advocate for digital health on a broader scale, Dr. Longhurst has contributed his expertise to industry forums, collaborated with policymakers to shape healthcare legislation, and mentored emerging leaders in the field of digital health.
Dr. Longhurst serves as an associate dean at the School of Medicine, overseeing our education and research missions within the clinical environment and leading our journey to become a highly reliable, learning health system. He directs the clinical activities of the academic medical center, working alongside clinical leaders to guide the planning of quality, safety, and performance excellence of programs. Dr. Longhurst is also a key faculty member in the Biomedical Informatics and Pediatrics departments at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. He maintains an active clinical practice as a newborn hospitalist, pursuing scholarship in care quality, patient safety, and health informatics.
Prior to his current role, Dr. Longhurst served in many leadership positions at UC San Diego Health. He served as the chief medical officer (CMO) and chief digital officer (CDO) from 2021-2023. As CMO and CDO, he was responsible for the technology strategy and maintaining excellence in clinical care, including regulatory, patient and clinician satisfaction, quality and safety, and medical affairs. Dr. Longhurst served as the chief information officer (2015-2021) and associate chief medical officer for quality and safety (2018-2021), where he provided leadership in key functional areas to continuously improve efforts around operations, reputation and care.
Before joining UC San Diego Health, Dr. Longhurst served as chief medical information officer for Stanford Children's Health, where he led strategic efforts to improve children's health and provider workflow using information technology. Dr. Longhurst founded and led the nation’s first accredited clinical informatics fellowship at Stanford, where he was a clinical professor of pediatrics and biomedical informatics. He also staffed the quality committee of Stanford's hospital board and facilitated national quality improvement collaborative work.
Dr. Longhurst completed his residency at Stanford University and earned his medical degree and master of science in medical informatics from UC Davis. He holds a bachelor of science in molecular biology from Revelle College at UC San Diego. He is a board-certified pediatrician and clinical informaticist. Dr. Longhurst is the author and co-author of many publications on using technology and data to improve the quality of care. He is an elected fellow of the prestigious American College of Medical Informatics.
Links
Research profile: Christopher Longhurst, UCSD Profiles
Twitter feed: @calonghurst