Christopher Gudding

Chris built his career on large Epic programs. As a consultant from 2011 to 2015, he led teams of up to 75 people and six front-to-back Epic installations. At Prime Healthcare Services, he was Epic Program Director for a 48-hospital, 400-plus clinic organization in 14 states on a single instance of Epic, leading a team of 140. He built a template that brought newly acquired facilities onto Epic within 60 days, including more than 30 moving from MEDITECH. At UC Irvine Health, he arrived three months before go-live to build the cutover plan, stand up the command center, and lead the move from Allscripts to Epic.

At Pacific Dental Services, Chris built a first-of-its-kind Epic program that took Epic's Wisdom dental module from an inpatient tool to a full outpatient suite for more than 800 dental offices in 27 states. At Tower Health, he led the Cerner-to-Epic transition for St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, 83 outpatient clinics, and 350 third-party applications. Run fully virtually during COVID-19, the program finished nearly $30 million under its $90 million budget.

From 2021 to 2025, Chris served as Chief Information Officer, Digital Transformation, at Walmart Health. He built the healthcare technology program from the ground up inside a company that had never run a standalone healthcare IT function. His team supported the opening of more than 50 clinics in three years, converted 24 existing clinics off older systems, launched virtual care across all 50 states in three months, and managed a $50 million budget. Through 2025, he also chaired the executive steering committee as Delta Dental launched a new healthcare support organization, including plans for a nationwide Epic Community Connect rollout.

Areas of expertise

• Epic implementations, from first plan through stabilization and optimization
• Go-live readiness and command center leadership
• IT strategy and 1, 3, 5, and 10-year roadmaps
• Governance and executive steering committees
• Vendor selection, contract negotiation, and budget oversight
• Bringing acquired facilities onto a shared EHR

Selected experience

• Spark Healthcare Advisory: Founder and Chief Executive & Information Officer
• Delta Dental: Executive Steering Committee Chair, 2024 to 2025
• Walmart Health: Chief Information Officer, Digital Transformation, 2021 to 2025
• Tower Health: Led the Epic transition for St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, 2020 to 2021
• Pacific Dental Services: Program Director, 2018 to 2020
• UC Irvine Health: Healthcare IT Director, 2017 to 2018
• Prime Healthcare Services: Epic Program Director, 2015 to 2017
• Led the implementations of the first and second dental-only Epic organizations
• Reached Epic's 9+ Stars level at multiple organizations

Education and credentials

• Bachelor of Science, Exercise Science (Pre-Physical Therapy), North Dakota State University
• Epic certifications: EpicCare Ambulatory, EpicCare Inpatient Procedure Orders, Order Transmittal, Wisdom, Kaleidoscope, and Data Courier

Outside of work

After work you can try to catch Chris at the latest Spartan race, but good luck: he's probably already halfway to the finish line, solving complex healthcare IT problems in his head.