2026 Chief Physician Executive Priorities Snapshot
Clinical leaders are navigating rapid change across care delivery, quality expectations, and workforce sustainability. Drawing on The Academy’s latest CXO Priorities Survey, this report examines the 2026 strategic priorities shaping Chief Medical Officer and Chief Physician Executive decision-making and benchmarks performance against peer institutions and other executive leaders. Please log in to access downloadable materials.
Key Takeaways
CPEs are the strongest AI champions in the C-suite. At 4.9 out of 5, CMO/CPEs rank AI strategy higher than any other executive role — even CIOs (4.5). This suggests clinical leaders don’t see AI as a standalone technology initiative. They view it as a care delivery lever, with direct implications for quality, decision-making, and throughput.
Care at home is the top untapped opportunity, despite being a low strategic priority today. Care at home strategy ranks as the number one improvement opportunity for CMOs/CPEs, yet it sits near the bottom of their priority list (25th out of 27). Combined with patient affordability at #2 for improvement and divesting underperforming assets at #4, this paints a picture of clinical leaders recognizing the need to fundamentally rethink where and how care is delivered — even if organizational focus hasn't caught up yet.
CPEs feel confident in their core clinical strengths but see a significant automation gap. Strengthening the workforce (1.8) and supply chain (1.9) score as areas of strong relative performance, suggesting clinical leaders feel they've stabilized foundational operations. Meanwhile, automation of workflows sits firmly in the "critical focus" quadrant — high priority, high opportunity to improve — making it the clearest action item for CPEs heading into 2026. The gap between ambition and execution on automation is wider for CPEs than for nearly any other priority they identified.