Thomas Powell, MD MS
Physician executive, career Chief Medical Information Officer, founder of CMIO, LLC, and author of The Diagnostician.
Three decades in medicine, operations and clinical informatics
Thomas Powell, MD MS, is a physician executive and career chief medical information officer (CMIO) based in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has led clinical informatics at academic medical centers, a children's hospital, a statewide health information exchange and an 18-hospital health system, and he now serves health systems nationally through CMIO, LLC as an interim CMIO and CHIO, advisor and mentor.
He led the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' move from Allscripts Sunrise and GE Centricity to Epic across inpatient care and all 43 primary care and specialty groups, and Miami Children's Hospital's move from paper to Cerner across 38 pediatric subspecialties. As an educator he built Arkansas's first clinical informatics MS and PhD program and helped build the state's only clinical informatics board fellowship with Arkansas Children's.
His book, The Diagnostician: American Healthcare Is Sick, Misdiagnosed, and Getting Worse; It's Time to Call the Doctor (November 3, 2026), applies the physician's clinical method to the health system itself. Every chapter ends with Bedside Questions, which leaders can take free in the Exam Room.
- Interim CMIO and CHIO leadership
- Clinical informatics and governance assessments
- Epic and Oracle Health (Cerner) implementation, conversion and optimization
- Clinical decision support, CPOE and clinical documentation
- Clinical AI and ambient documentation governance
- Data quality, analytics and health information exchange
- Informatics workforce development, curriculum and CMIO mentoring
- Keynotes, grand rounds and board sessions
Where he has led
CMIO, LLC
Founder and Managing Director. Interim executive and physician-lead engagements for health systems, including Epic conversion and optimization, CMIO mentoring, and informatics workforce and governance development.
Aspirus Health
Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer for 18 hospitals and 130 outpatient locations, with 1,300 employed physicians and advanced practice clinicians.
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Chief Medical Information Officer and Associate Vice Chancellor (2013 to 2017); then Assistant Professor of Clinical Informatics and Clinical Track Leader (2017 to 2022).
State of Arkansas
Medical and Executive Officer, Arkansas Office of Health Information Technology and the State Health Alliance for Records Exchange (SHARE).
Miami Children's Hospital
Chief Medical Information Officer and Director of Informatics, then Chief Informatics and Analytics Officer. The hospital is now Nicklaus Children's Hospital.
University of Miami
Director of Anesthesia Informatics; Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Assistant Medical Director of Perioperative Medicine at Jackson Memorial Hospital.
- MS, Biomedical Engineering (Clinical Informatics), Duke University, with an NIH/NLM medical informatics fellowship
- MD, The University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio
- BS, Physical Therapy, University of South Alabama