This feature is part of our Customer Spotlight Series, where we highlight healthcare leaders driving meaningful changes through innovation, data, and heart.
When you talk to Jeffrey Hoffman, MD, one thing becomes clear fast: he’s not just in clinical informatics – he’s shaping the field. As Chief Medical Information Officer and Chief of Clinical Informatics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Hoffman has spent more than 20 years rethinking how technology and data can support better care for kids.
From the ER to informatics
Hoffman started his career in pediatric emergency medicine, where his love of problem-solving first took root. “I was probably doing informatics before I even realized it,” he says. As a medical student, he built a basic electronic health record (EHR) simulation – and that hands-on tinkering eventually turned into a full-blown career in health IT.
It turns out emergency medicine is a common launchpad for people in informatics. “If there’s any place where real-time data is critical, it’s the ED,” he explains. You’re often flying blind – no chart, no history, just a patient in front of you and seconds to act. That experience drilled in the importance of having timely, accurate information.
But it also showed him what was missing. In the ER, there’s no follow-up. “You don’t know if your diagnosis was right or if the treatment worked,” he says. “To get better, you need data. You need feedback.” That realization planted the seed for his deep belief in the power of interoperability, data infrastructure, and building smarter systems for both patients and providers.
[In the ER], you don’t know if your diagnosis was right or if the treatment worked. To get better, you need data. You need feedback.
Making the clinician’s job easier
Improving outcomes is a big part of Hoffman’s work but so is making life better for the people doing the work. One of his team’s biggest wins? Cutting unnecessary pop-up alerts in the EHR by almost 60%, helping reduce burnout without sacrificing safety.
They also built a friendly, data-backed reminder system to help providers finish charting on time – hugely important for billing. The result? A drop from hundreds of missed deadlines to just a few dozen.
“We’re not just tech support,” he says. “We’re here to solve real problems that clinicians face every day.”
Beyond the hospital
Hoffman’s work doesn’t stop at the hospital walls. His team has partnered with an in-house group of data scientists to develop a series of predictive models to help improve population health and clinical operations. Based in Columbus, Ohio and the nation’s third-largest pediatric hospital, Nationwide Children’s runs the country’s largest pediatric accountable care organization, covering nearly 500,000 kids across the state. Through these efforts, the hospital has developed a predictive model to help care coordinators figure out which families are most likely to engage in medical services – tripling enrollment in care programs without hiring a single extra person.
They’ve also used data to predict which kids with asthma or diabetes might end up in the ER, and even which babies are most at risk for developing cavities before age three. These tools help care teams step in earlier, before small problems become big ones.
Building the right team
On top of his local work, Hoffman helps shape the future of the field nationally. He chairs the Clinical Informatics sub-board and advises Epic on improving the provider experience. But what he’s proudest of is building one of the only fully hospital-funded clinical informatics divisions in the country. Today, Nationwide Children’s has over ten physicians dedicated almost entirely to informatics work – a rarity in most health systems.
That work reflects the hospital’s broader mission, too. “We’re investing in programs to build nearby community housing, provide local job training, and increase high school graduation rates,” he says. “We’re trying to tackle the root causes of poor health, the stuff most hospitals don’t even touch.”
I think of us like water or power. We're essential infrastructure.
Why it matters
While everyone’s talking about generative artificial intelligence (AI), Hoffman is still focused on the power of predictive analytics; tools that are already saving lives. “I think of us like water or power,” he says. “We’re essential infrastructure.”
And honestly, we couldn’t agree more.
