Center for Digital Health Innovation



Michael Blum, MD

Director
Center for Digital Health Innovation

Dr. Michael Blum is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Informatics and the Chief Digital Transformation Officer at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Blum is responsible for UCSF’s strategic design and implementation of informatics and digital health capabilities in support of clinical care delivery and discovery. He is also a Professor of Medicine in Cardiology, specializing in preventative cardiology and the care of patients with congestive heart failure, valvular heart disease, and general cardiology. Dr. Blum is passionate about wellness and the prevention of heart disease through a heart-healthy lifestyle that includes diet, exercise and stress reduction, as well as early detection of heart disease and aggressive medical intervention to reduce its impact. His clinical and informatics activities intersect as he drives the digital transformation of care delivery.

Dr. Blum earned his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine, followed by a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American College of Cardiology, and Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, such as the AMDIS Award for Excellence and Achievement in Advancement of Clinical Information Systems. Dr. Blum is a Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at UCSF.

Prior to his medical career, Dr. Blum was trained as an engineer and applies his expertise in technology to health care as UCSF’s Chief Digital Transformation Officer and the Executive Director of the UCSF Center for Digital Health Innovation (CDHI). Previously, he was a leader of the successful enterprise deployment of Epic’s electronic health record and the development of a large-scale enterprise networked data warehouse that will supports the campus’s clinical, research, and education missions and expands data and information sharing and aggregation across the University of California system and nationally.

Dr. Blum has a special interest in the application of digital technologies and clinical decision support to improve clinical care. As the Executive Director of the CDHI, he leads UCSF’s early stage validation and incubation of digital health technologies to improve wellness preservation and disease management. After successful validation of these technologies, CDHI collaborates with industry partners to commercialize and distribute the solutions. Dr. Blum led the formation of the UCSF-Samsung Digital Health Innovation Laboratory, the UCSF-Cisco collaboration to develop the Connected Health Interoperability Platform, and the UCSF-GE collaboration on artificial intelligence and deep learning in healthcare.

Rachael Callcut, MD

Director of Data Science & Advanced Analytics
Center for Digital Health Innovation

Dr. Callcut is General Surgeon and Associate Professor of Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Hospital. She leads a NIH and DOD funded team of researchers focused on integration of biomedical big data and surgical data science into critical care for improved clinical decision support.

Mary Elizabeth Chalk

Business Development
Center for Digital Health Innovation

Mary Beth is responsible for business development, including the recent transaction with GE. She has 25 years of broad healthcare expertise in conceiving and completing deals in digital health, biopharma, behavioral health, disease management, wellness, health systems, pharmacy benefit management, and health plans. Prior to UCSF, she was a co-founder of a venture capital backed digital health coaching solution built from IP validated at Partners Healthcare. Mary Beth holds a BBA in marketing and a BFA in commercial design.

Ed Martin

Director, Technology
Center for Digital Health Innovation

Ed is a technologist with 20+ years of experience in software engineering with the last 5 years at UCSF focused on cloud-computing application solutions.  He has a B.S. in Computer Science from UC Davis and a M.Sc. in Healthcare Information Technology from Boston University.

Aaron Neinstein, MD

VP, Digital Health
Center for Digital Health Innovation

Dr. Aaron Neinstein is Vice President of Digital Health for UCSF Health and Associate Professor in the UCSF Division of Endocrinology. He has led the development and implementation of a wide range of health technology, with a focus on digital transformation and improving patient access and empowerment through virtual care models. This includes leading UCSF’s ambulatory Epic EHR implementation and optimization, development and deployment of numerous digital health solutions transforming digital patient experience and virtual care delivery across UCSF, and co-founding of Tidepool, a non-profit creating open-source software to empower people with diabetes.

Dr. Neinstein was an inaugural inductee as a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association (FAMIA), and is a federal appointee serving on the United States Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC). Board-certified in Endocrinology, Clinical Informatics, and Internal Medicine, he maintains an active clinical practice focused on the care of people with diabetes, and is considered a national expert in diabetes technology. He was named by Marin Magazine to the 2020 Bay Area [415] Top Doctors List and received the UCSF School of Medicine Excellence in Teaching award. Dr. Neinstein is a nationally-invited speaker, peer-reviewed author, advisor to numerous companies, and has appeared in media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC Good Morning America, and NPR. He received his Doctor of Medicine, including the Alpha Omega Alpha honors society, from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, and his undergraduate degree in American Studies from Northwestern University.

Rhona Snyman

Chief Strategy Officer
Center for Digital Health Innovation

Rhona is the Chief Strategy Officer for UCSF’s Center for Digital Health Innovation, responsible for developing, communicating, executing, and sustaining CDHI’s strategic initiatives. Prior to joining CDHI, Rhona was responsible for overseeing product development and business strategy for UCSF School of Medicine IT, which included planning the early-stage adoption of innovation programs such as Telemedicine and SalesForce. Rhona earned an honors B.S. in Computer Science at UCC, Ireland.