Jack A. Ziffer, PhD, M.D.

Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Chief Physician Executive

Jack Ziffer, M.D., is executive vice president, chief clinical officer and chief physician executive for Baptist Health South Florida, with responsibility for all strategic, operational and policy matters for Baptist Health’s physician initiatives and enterprises. His focus is coordinating vision, strategy and operations among the physician leadership for the system, concentrating on its clinical centers of excellence and primary care and pursuing the highest quality, destination healthcare for all its patients. He and his team aspire to deliver the highest levels of evidence-based and reliable care, outcomes and value with an exceptional patient experience. In addition to Baptist Health Medical Group and Baptist Health Quality Network, selected areas of oversight include population health, medical informatics and advanced analytics, the system’s pharmacy program, home health, as well as the Center for Research and Grants.

A luminary physician leader, he was the founding leader of Baptist Health Medical Group (BHMG) as its first chief executive officer. He then became the health system’s first physician executive vice president, with continuing oversight of BHMG and Baptist Health Quality Network (BHQN). Working with his fellow executive vice presidents in operations (COO), finance (CFO), strategy (CSO) and administration (CAO), under the Baptist Health chief executive officer and president, the team pursues delivering the health system’s mission and vision.

Prior to becoming a physician-executive at Baptist Health, Dr. Ziffer served as president and CEO of RASF, a multispecialty group and then one of the largest in South Florida and among the largest in the nation for radiology. Prior to that, he was director of cardiovascular nuclear medicine at Emory University, where he first completed his residency in diagnostic radiology and then a combined fellowship in nuclear medicine and cardiovascular MRI. He received his medical degree from the University of Miami in its two-year accelerated PhD-MD program, and a doctorate in molecular biology from the Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman, M.D., Ph.D., and Bruce Cunningham, Ph.D. He was in the first group (of two students) to receive simultaneously a bachelor’s and master’s degree in four years from Emory University, where he was also a John Gordon Stipe Scholar, graduating summa cum laude in Chemistry.

Dr. Ziffer was a founding member of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography and served as one of the original presidents in 2009. He was also a founding member and vice president of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, and is a past president of the Cardiovascular Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine. He has played leadership roles in defining quality, training and education in his field, as a founding board member of both the Certification Board of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography and the Certification Board of Nuclear Cardiology. He has served on the board of directors of the American Board of Nuclear Medicine, the Joint Committee on Educational Programs in Nuclear Medicine Technology, the Inter-Societal Commission for the Accreditation of Nuclear Laboratories, and the Board of Governors of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.

Dr. Ziffer is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and a master of Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Radiology, including special competence in nuclear radiology, and the American Board of Nuclear Medicine. He has authored more than 100 articles, chapters and abstracts and given hundreds of lectures in the U.S. and abroad. He has served as a reviewer of numerous journals and on the editorial board of the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology. He is a clinical professor of radiology at Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.