Christopher A. Longhurst, MD, FACMI

Christopher Longhurst, MD, is a board-certified pediatrician who specializes in the care of newborns. As a newborn hospitalist, he meets with parents and their babies during their postpartum stay in the hospital, providing daily care to infants. This care includes newborn examinations, screening tests and performing procedures like frenotomy.

Dr. Longhurst is also the chief medical officer (CMO) and chief digital officer (CDO) at UC San Diego Health. This dual, complementary role provides leadership to medical staff, ensuring that standards and protocols are in place to provide the highest quality of care to patients.

As CMO, Dr. Longhurst is responsible for maintaining excellence in clinical care, including regulatory, patient and clinician satisfaction, quality and safety, and medical affairs. As the CDO, he leads UC San Diego Health's technology strategy, overseeing initiatives that advance the infrastructure across UC San Diego and the UC Health system. In addition, Dr. Longhurst leads the clinical activities of the academic medical center, working alongside clinical leaders to guide the planning of quality, safety, and performance excellence of programs.

As a professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Medicine's Division of Biomedical Informatics, Dr. Longhurst instructs medical students, residents and fellows at UC San Diego School of Medicine. His research focuses on evaluating the best ways to implement and optimize health information technology to benefit patients and staff. Dr. Longhurst has also published many articles on using technology and data to improve patient care and outcomes. His work has appeared in journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Pediatrics, among others.

Prior to joining UC San Diego Health, Dr. Longhurst was chief medical information officer for Stanford Children's Health and a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he helped lead the organization through the implementation of a comprehensive electronic medical record (EMR) for over a decade. He also founded and led the clinical informatics fellowship at Stanford.

Dr. Longhurst completed a residency in pediatrics at Stanford University. He earned his medical degree from UC Davis School of Medicine, where he also obtained a master's degree in medical informatics. He is board certified in general pediatrics and clinical informatics and is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (FACMI).

He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems (AMDIS) and the American Medical Informatics Association.

As a recognized combined physician and information technology specialist, Dr. Longhurst serves as an advisor to several companies and speaks internationally on a wide range of healthcare information technology topics. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including San Diego Business Journal's 2017 Top Technology Executive in the education category, the AMDIS Award for Excellence and Modern Healthcare magazine's "Top 25 Clinical Informaticist" award.

UC San Diego Health Links
For more information, see Newborn Care.