Who: Edward Marx

Current position: Chief Information Officer at Texas Health Resources

Location: Arlington, Texas

Fast facts: Marx, a onetime Army Reserve combat medic, was chief technologist for the Columbia Physician Services unit of for-profit hospital giant HCA in the late 1990s, before moving to Cleveland-based University Hospitals, where he eventually became CIO. At Texas Health Resources, Marx directed an EMR rollout across 13 hospitals and dozens of affiliated physician practices. He is a member of the KLAS Enterprises advisory board and was named to the 2010 Computerworld "Premier 100 IT Leaders" list.

What makes him disruptive: It may be cliché, but Marx truly thinks outside the box. Texas Health Resources has wholeheartedly embraced social media, via Facebook, Twitter and a YouTube channel, not to mention Marx's "CIO Unplugged" column on the popular HIStalk blog. Marx has been particularly aggressive in the area of health information exchange, reaching out to independent physician practices with an EMR subsidy program even before HHS relaxed Stark and Medicare anti-kickback rules--and outside physicians actually have a choice of vendors for the Texas Health program. Marx has worked with Epic Systems to create interoperability between all 13 Texas Health hospitals and Children's Medical Center Dallas, and has similar plans with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Health & Hospital System. The health system also has been a key innovation laboratory for Microsoft "surface computing" development.