Cleveland Clinic names Edward Marx as new CIO

Edward Marx will take over as the new chief information officer at Cleveland Clinic, effective Sept. 1.

Having most recently served as CIO of the Advisory Board Company since 2015, Marx has held numerous IT leadership positions since 2007. Those roles include stints as CIO at Pueblo, Colo.-based Parkview Medical Center, Cleveland-based University Hospitals and Texas Health Resources. He also served as an advisory board member for healthcare research company KLAS.

“Ed has spent his career fostering a culture of innovation and leading teams at the forefront of healthcare information technology,” Cleveland Clinic President and CEO Toby Cosgrove, MD, said in a statement. “As CIO he will advance the Cleveland Clinic’s ‘Patients First’ culture by providing information-enabled, data-driven technology focused on facilitating world-class patient care.”

Marx’s resume also includes numerous awards, including being named 2013 CIO of the Year by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Health Information Management & Systems Society (HIMSS) and winning the 2012 CHIME’s state advocacy award while serving as chairman of the Texas Health Services Authority.

He received his bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in design, merchandising and consumer sciences from Colorado State University.

“Successful healthcare IT has to ask, ‘How do we innovate to save lives?’” Marx said in a press release. “Technology has such potential to save many, many more lives, if we can innovate and impact patient safety and the quality of care we deliver.”

He takes over the role from C. Martin Harris, MD, MBA, who left after twenty years as Cleveland Clinic’s CIO to become chief business officer at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas. Doug Smith had filled the position on an interim basis.

Marx’s appointment caps one transition in the C-suite at Cleveland Clinic, which saw its operating income fall 71 percent in 2016. CEO Cosgrove has announced he’s leaving at the end of 2017 after 13 years in the role. A new CEO is expected to be named by the end of the year.