Voices of Healthcare · #28
Kensaku Kawamoto
Chief Health AI Transformation Officer; Professor
University of Utah Health
Kensaku Kawamoto is chief health AI transformation officer at University of Utah Health and a professor of biomedical informatics. He founded OpenCDS, software that lets many hospitals run the same clinical decision rules, and ReImagine EHR, a push to build apps that sit on top of the record, not inside one vendor's screens.
From Harvard to Duke
He earned a bachelor's degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard and an MD and PhD in biomedical engineering, plus a master's degree in clinical research, from Duke. He envisioned OpenCDS in 2010 as a generic design that applied lessons from an earlier decision support system he had built.
Informatics at the University of Utah
He joined the faculty at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine in 2011. He is the Dr. Helmuth F. Orthner Endowed Professor and vice chair of clinical AI and informatics in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Since 2013 he has been associate chief medical information officer for University of Utah Health. He co-directs the Digital Health Initiative and founded ReImagine EHR, a project to improve care through applications that work across electronic health record systems instead of locking a clinic to one vendor's screens.
On April 1, 2026, University of Utah Health made him its inaugural chief health AI transformation officer, reporting to chief innovation officer Jim Hotaling. He oversees an Innovation Lab launched in January to move new tools into the health system.
He founded and directs OpenCDS, a shared, standards-based clinical decision support service used by tens of thousands of healthcare organizations.
He served two terms on the U.S. Health IT Advisory Committee and co-chaired its Interoperability Standards Priorities Task Force. He co-chairs the HL7 Clinical Decision Support Work Group and is a past HL7 board member.
He is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and of the American Medical Informatics Association. Modern Healthcare listed him among its Top 25 Innovators in 2019. He has written more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and 10 book chapters.
Links
← All people · Featured in Voices of Healthcare: 30 People Changing Health Tech (2026)