Elif Oker

Executive Director, HealthTech Digital Strategy & Design, Blue Cross and Blue Shield

Chicago

Elif Oker, MD, FACEP is Executive Director of IT Digital Strategy & User Experience at Healthcare Service Corporation (HCSC); a parent of five Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans (BCBS). At HCSC, Dr. Oker leads the digital design practice, founded in human centered principles, to support product delivery across all five BCBS plans. A principal in HCSC’s Digital Strategy Advisory Group, she is also responsible for the identification and prioritization of HCSC’s digital capabilities. Dr. Oker, a veteran emergency medicine specialist, has served as assistant professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Medicine.

Prior to her current role, Dr. Oker served as medical director for Clinical Strategy & Innovation at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois; one of HCSC’s health plans. As medical director, Dr. Oker worked closely with sales and account management teams to drive population health strategy for key municipal governments and high profile Fortune 500 companies. She also represented BCBSIL on HCSC’s medical policy team; synthesizing scientific & regulator developments and engaging key opinion leaders (Pharma, Device, Tech, Provider) to develop enterprise medical policies to guide coverage positions.

An early adopter and digital evangelist, Dr. Oker is routinely tapped as a subject matter expert in digital health serving as a mentor to start-ups at 1871 and MATTER Chicago. A trained media spokesperson and thought leader who has created content and integration strategy for a variety of social media platforms, Dr. Oker has been featured on Bloomberg, Discovery Channel, PBS; presented at Health 2.0, the American Heart Association, HIMSS and served as a delegate to TEDMED. She has also published in medical journals, textbooks and served as a guest lecturer at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, UIC School of Public Health and the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Oker is a member of the Institute of Medicine Chicago and recently served on the National Quality Forum’s Emergency Department Quality of Transitions of Care expert panel.

A graduate of the University of Michigan's combined undergraduate-medical school program (Inteflex), Dr. Oker is fellowship-trained in Toxicology, a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians (FACEP) and Diplomate of the American Board of Emergency Medicine.