Kevin B. Johnson, M.D., MS
Kevin B. Johnson is an internationally respected pioneer in the development of innovative technological solutions to healthcare challenges. A physician, informatician, and internationally recognized science communicator, he has led groundbreaking work in healthcare technology. He offers engaging and informative talks on how technology can improve healthcare for providers and patients. He is known for making complex subjects such as artificial intelligence and digital health accessible to wider audiences, while addressing the growing challenges of medical misinformation and science communication.
Dr. Johnson is the David L. Cohen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Vice President of Applied Clinical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He also directs the Artificial Intelligence for Ambulatory Care Lab, where his research focuses on using AI to improve clinical documentation, reduce clinician burnout, and enhance patient care. Through his laboratory at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, Dr. Johnson leads the OBSERVER Project, which has created a publicly available, de-identified dataset combining video, audio, transcripts, and health records from real primary care visits. The dataset provides new insights into patient-provider interactions, including communication and body language. His related REDUCE initiative investigates how AI can ease administrative burdens, improve clinical decision-making, and help restore more meaningful interactions between clinicians and patients.
Previously, Dr. Johnson built the first computer-based documentation system used at Johns Hopkins and the first e-prescribing system used at Vanderbilt. He was also among the first researchers to show that text messaging can drive behavior change. He also produced and directed the documentary No Matter Where, examining the challenges and consequences of sharing medical information across healthcare systems.
Dr. Johnson has reached a broader audience with his podcast, Informatics in the Round, which explored healthcare, technology, and informatics, running for five years and 38 episodes. He is also a co-author and co-editor of the Who, Me? children's book series, encouraging young readers from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science and medicine. Dr. Johnson's forthcoming book, Misfit: Notes on Belonging, Brilliance, and the Spaces Between, (February, 2027) explores themes of identity, belonging, and the experience of being different.
The author of over 200 publications, Dr. Johnson has received numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He was elected to the American College of Medical Informatics, the Academic Pediatric Society, the National Academy of Medicine, the International Association of Health Science Informatics, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He received his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, an MS in Medical Informatics from Stanford University, and a BS with honors in Biology from Dickinson College.
Topics
Aladdin's Lamp or Pandora's Box? Leading Health Care Through the AI Transition
Predictive and generative AI are arriving in clinics faster than most health systems can govern them. Dr. Kevin Johnson, who co-authored the National Academy of Medicine's AI Code of Conduct and has led clinical technology at two major academic medical centers, speaks with both a policymaker's and an operator's view, explaining where AI is already improving care, where it is quietly making things worse (especially related to health equity), and which decisions about workforce, training, governance and policy will decide the outcome. Audiences leave with a practical framework for adopting AI responsibly instead of reactively.
Best for: health system executives, boards, payers, policy audienc
Keeping Health Care Human in the Age of Intelligent Machines
Algorithms can now read scans, draft notes and predict who will get sick. What do they mean for the relationship at the center of medicine? Dr. Johnson brings together lessons from clinicians, engineers, economists and ethicists to ask what it takes to keep care humane while technology changes it. He explores the human foundations of care through AI, robotics and surgical intelligence to trust, accountability and why health systems resist change. He shows how no single discipline can get this right, and explains how we must collaborate in order to improve the future of healthcare.
Best for: universities, medical humanities and ethics programs, interdisciplinary audiences, general-interest keynotes.
Lessons from the CIO's Chair: What Digital Transformation Really Takes
Most health IT projects fail on people, not technology. Dr. Johnson led a large-scale Epic implementation as a health system CIO and now leads applied clinical informatics at Penn Medicine. He gives a candid account of what makes a technology transformation succeed or stall: governance, clinician trust, change fatigue, and the decisions executives tend to get wrong.
Best for: executive and board audiences, health system leadership retreats.
When Patients Ask the Machine: AI, Misinformation, and Community Trust
Millions of patients now ask chatbots about their health before they ask a doctor. Drawing on his research on patient-facing AI, algorithmic bias and health misinformation, Dr. Johnson looks at who benefits from these tools, who gets left out, and why communities need to help build health AI rather than just receive it.
Best for: public health, patient advocacy, foundations, community health organizations.
From Clipboard to Copilot: The Electronic Health Record and What Comes Next
The EHR made care safer and more connected. It also turned clinicians into data-entry clerks. Dr. Johnson has seen this from every side: as a pediatrician, as an informatics researcher, and as the CIO who led a large-scale Epic implementation. He traces how we got here and what AI scribes and ambient documentation can and cannot fix. Drawing on his Observer Project, which studies recorded clinic visits with the goal of freeing clinicians from the secretary role, he explains what clinicians, executives, vendors, patients, and policymakers can each do to improve the system and their own experiences with it.
Best for: CMIOs and CIOs, clinical leadership, health IT conferences, vendor events.
Misfit: Notes on Belonging, Brilliance, and the Spaces Between
Dr. Kevin Johnson grew up blue-collar in Baltimore. He went on to Johns Hopkins and Stanford and helped build a medical specialty that barely existed when he entered it. Along the way, he learned to be at home in his identity as a gay Black man in spaces not designed for him. Drawing on his memoir Misfit, he speaks about the mentors who saw something before he did, the cost of fitting in, and the strength that comes from the parts of us that don't fit. It's funny, honest, and personal, and it gives audiences a new way to think about belonging, mentorship, and the misfits in their own roles as teachers, parents, executives, mentors, and humans.
Best for: keynotes, commencements, DEI and leadership programs, mentoring initiatives.
Stories That Stick: Communicating Science in an Age of Misinformatio
Accurate information loses to a better story every day. Dr. Johnson shows how scientists and clinicians can use narrative, visuals, audio and video to reach audiences who don't read journals. He also shares tested techniques for countering misinformation without condescension and for making complex ideas memorable.
Best for: academic medical centers, research institutions, public health agencies, science organizations.
In Harmony: What a Life in Music Teaches About Leadership, Teamwork and Health Care
Great health care sounds a lot like great music: many voices, one sound, and no room for a soloist who stops listening. Dr. Kevin Johnson has sung professionally, sung in choirs since junior high school, played bass from sixth grade through college, sung barbershop, and performed solos at weddings and funerals. In this lively, music-filled keynote, he shows what ensembles know that health care is still learning: leaders who make everyone else sound better, teams that blend instead of compete, handoffs as seamless as a choir's staggered breathing, and the composure to perform at life's most important moments. Audiences leave with a fresh, memorable way to think about leading teams and delivering care together.
Best for: opening and closing keynotes, leadership and team-building events, nursing and interprofessional audiences.
Videos
Articles
Podcasts
Testimonials
.png)
