Zing Health has a new chief medical officer!

According to PR Newswire, Trent Haywood, MD, JD has been named chief medical officer of the Chicago-based provider of Medicare Advantage plans.

Dr. Haywood previously served as senior vice president in the Office of Clinical Affairs and chief medical officer for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) Association where he represented the BCBS system on clinical matters that affected over 106 million of its members.

During his time with BCBS, he also led the development of clinical programs, medical policy, and technology platforms.

“Dr. Haywood is a true clinician executive with deep experience in technology and population health innovation,” said Dr. Eric E. Whitaker, Zing Health’s CEO in an official press release. “During his 20-plus year career in healthcare, Dr. Haywood has focused on improving population health, and his values align perfectly with Zing Health’s mission to address social determinants of health at scale.”

Throughout his career, Dr. Haywood has served as deputy chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and chief medical officer of VHA Inc. (now Vizient) where he worked alongside clinicians to minimize clinical variation, optimize service-line performance, and reduce costs.

His creative approaches to addressing health issues outside of the medical office have played a pivotal role in bringing care to the people who need it most.

As the founder of a venture services firm, Knowality, Dr. Haywood has partnered with healthcare startups and venture capital firms in order to create a faster way to address social determinants of health, home, and community-based services, as well as senior community living.

“Because Zing Health is relatively new because it is dedicated to focus on underserved communities, we can design the health plan with social determinants of health embedded in it from the beginning,” said Dr. Haywood in the statement.

Currently, Dr. Haywood serves on the Medical Advisory Board of Teladoc, the Change Healthcare advisory board, and the Healthmap Solutions board.