TTUHSC Names Executive Director for Telehealth Technology and Innovation

• By Suzanna Cisneros
• February 28, 2023
• Campus Life

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) has named John Gachago, DHA, as the executive director for Telehealth Technology and Innovation.

As a pioneer in telehealth, TTUHSC has expanded and evolved the accessibility of medical care. Telehealth is a valuable vehicle to extend health care across the regions they serve and beyond. With Gachago’s leadership, TTUHSC will build on existing academic, clinical and rural telehealth platforms to establish a future Institute for Telehealth Technology and Innovation.

“In our effort to support rural health providers, our goal as a university is to develop and implement emerging telehealth and digital health adaptations to improve and expand access to care,” TTUHSC President Lori Rice-Spearman, Ph.D., said. “We are excited to welcome Dr. Gachago to our team in this critical hire to help increase coordinated telehealth and digital health implementation and adoption. In his role, he will build upon the existing TTUHSC telehealth components in the clinical, academic, and rural health settings as TTUHSC stays at the forefront of advancements in these technologies.”

Of the 108 counties in the TTUHSC service region, 20 have no practicing physician and 11 have no physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant. Outside urban centers, there are very few specialty providers, resulting in many patients traveling long distances to seek medical care. TTUHSC has served more than 160,000 clinical telehealth visits since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and more than 500 clinic providers have accessed and used telemedicine.

In his role as executive director, Gachago will be responsible for oversight and strategic management of TTUHSC’s efforts in the advancement of comprehensive telehealth. He will expand the impact of telehealth to improve the health of those TTUHSC serves while cultivating a learning and working environment that encourages research, education, training and scholarship in telehealth.

Gachago is currently the DigiHealth senior technology consultant for the International Finance Corporation World Bank Group. He also is a current digital and technology advancement technology scholar and research fellow at the National Institutes of Health.

As the co-founder and CEO of E-Health Solutions LLC, Gachago led the development of a Hybrid Telemedicine/Mobile Health App that was recognized by Frost & Sullivan as the best Mobile Health/Telemedicine solution in customer value delivery in 2018. While at E-Health Solutions, Gachago served as the senior level operational leader of telemedicine and mobile health implementation, coordination, training and leadership administration. Prior to that he worked as an eHealth consultant and telemedicine project director at eServices, Ltd./JWG Global Ltd.
 
Gachago received a Doctor of Healthcare Administration from the University of Phoenix, a Master of Science in international management from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Science Bachelor of Arts (BSBA) in International Business Administration and French from the American International College.