EVP & Chief Clinical Officer
Hartford HealthCare
Ajay Kumar, MD, FACP, SFHM, MBA, is the Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer for Hartford HealthCare.
Dr. Kumar joined Hartford HealthCare in 2011. He has more than two decades of healthcare experience and has served in a wide range of leadership roles with oversight of quality and patient safety, risk management, hospital operations and education.
Prior to his role as Chief Clinical Officer, Dr. Kumar was the Vice President of Medical Affairs for the Hartford Region, where he made great contributions in improving Hartford Hospital’s operational efficiency, quality and patient safety.
He served as Chairman of Hartford Hospital’s Department of Medicine from October 2013 through December 2018, and also formerly led the Division of Hospital Medicine. In that capacity, his efforts focused on service reorganization, recruitment, quality, and process improvement.
Dr. Kumar came to the United States in 2001 after completing his Medical Degree from Bangalore University, India and Membership of the Royal College of Physicians at the Royal College of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He joined the Cleveland Clinic in 2004 as a staff physician in hospital medicine.
In 2010, he was selected by the American College of Physicians as a Top Hospitalist for his commitment towards hospital medicine.
He went on to serve in many leadership roles at the Cleveland Clinic, including Director of the Internal Medicine Preoperative Assessment, Consultation, and Treatment Center; Director of Quality and Patient Safety; and Director of the Blood Management Program.
His work has resulted in many accomplishments, namely co-leading a project on improving sign-out process. This work and its corresponding software solution were highlighted at the Joint Commission’s 2010 national annual meeting.
Additionally, he has organized and directed several educational events at leading hospitals across the nation, including two Blood Management Summits at the Cleveland Clinic; four international conferences on Blood Management at the Mayo Clinic; and the Health Care Innovation and Quality Summit at the Cleveland Clinic.
He has been featured in many peer-reviewed journals and books on the topic of blood management and pre-operative anemia management.
He is an active member of the American College of Physicians and the Society of Hospital Medicine and has been instrumental in many public policy efforts.
Dr. Kumar earned his Master's Degree in Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018.
rev.8.19