HOK names a physician as its new Chief Medical Officer

HOK, the global design firm whose healthcare practice has planned and designed numerous healthcare facilities, has appointed Andrew M. Ibrahim, a medical doctor whose education included architectural training, as its chief medical officer.

Ibrahim, MD, MSc., is a resident surgeon at the University of Michigan, and serves on AIA’s Design and Health Leadership Group. While at Case Western Reserve University, where he received his undergraduate and medical degrees, Ibrahim took a year of coursework at London’s Bartlett School of Architecture.

He has also received training in healthcare delivery and policy as a Crile Fellow at Princeton University, a Doris Duke Fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Michigan.

HOK claims to be one of the first AEC firms to hire a chief medical officer. (According to his LinkedIn page, Ibrahim has been HOK’s chief medical officer since February, although the company only released that news yesterday.) “In an era of hospital megamergers and value-based care, Dr. Ibrahim’s expertise in healthcare policy and clinical innovation will be instrumental in helping our teams guide clients through how vertical and horizontal integrations can positively affect patient care,” says Anthony Roesch, AIA, director of HOK’s global Healthcare Consulting group.

Ibrahim will use his expertise in surgery, architecture and clinical care delivery models to collaborate with HOK’s teams of medical planners, designers, and consultants.

“My experience has taught me that everything we build and design—schools, stadiums, airports, skyscrapers—has enormous potential to improve population health and wellness. As such, I deliberately collaborate across a breadth of academic and private sectors,” Ibrahim wrote on the website surgeryredesign.com. where he highlights his academic research and writing.