Hospital Chief Operating Officers (COOs) are the operational backbone of healthcare systems. They translate strategy into day-to-day execution, manage clinical and non-clinical operations, optimize throughput, and ensure the hospital runs safely, efficiently, and profitably. For any healthcare vendor from medical device manufacturers and diagnostics companies to software firms and service providers the COO is a high-value target for strategic outreach. Why? Because COOs control purchasing pathways, lead operational pilots, and influence cross-departmental decisions that directly affect procurement cycles and implementation timelines.
According to Ampliz 2025, there are 21,837 hospital COOs in the United States a substantial and targetable audience for B2B healthcare marketing. Here, we’ll walk through: what a hospital COO does and why they matter to marketers; a practical, and Top 20 hospital COOs (by hospital); estimated counts and market implications; outreach best practices tailored for COOs; and a step-by-step guide to reaching them using Ampliz healthcare data intelligence.
This guide is written for healthcare marketers, sales leaders, and growth teams who want an actionable, data-driven playbook for connecting with COOs — not generic advice, but concrete techniques tied to real-world data sources and Ampliz capabilities.
Who is the Hospital COO?
A hospital COO is typically the senior executive responsible for the daily operational performance of a hospital or health system. Key responsibilities include:
- Operational Leadership: Ensuring smooth functioning of inpatient and outpatient services, supply chain, facility management, and ancillary services (radiology, lab, pharmacy).
- Process Optimization: Leading initiatives for throughput, length-of-stay reduction, capacity planning, and patient flow.
- Financial Performance: Working closely with finance to control costs, improve operational margin, and oversee resource allocation.
- Quality & Safety: Enforcing clinical protocols, patient safety programs, and regulatory compliance.
- Technology & Innovation: Sponsoring and piloting operational technologies (EHR optimizations, patient flow platforms, predictive analytics).
- Vendor Decisions: Evaluating vendors that reduce overhead, streamline operations, or deliver ROI in operational KPIs.
Understanding these priorities lets marketers craft messages that resonate: emphasize measurable operational outcomes, pilot-friendly deployment, and strong ROI evidence.
Market Size & Opportunity
Ampliz reports 21,837 hospital COOs in the USA (2025). That number includes COOs across independent hospitals, integrated health systems, specialty hospitals, and major academic medical centers. From a marketing perspective:
- Segment Opportunity: COOs span community hospitals (many smaller purchasing budgets but wide in number), regional systems (higher influence across sites), and large academic centers (complex procurement cycles, high value).
- Campaign Tailoring: Micro-segment by hospital size, ownership (nonprofit vs for-profit), service lines (cardiac, oncology), and geography for higher relevance.
- Sales Motions: Use an ABM (account-based marketing) approach for top-tier systems and targeted demand-gen for smaller hospitals. Ampliz enables these granular segments.
How Many Hospital COOs in the US?
As per Ampliz 2025: 21,837 hospital COOs in the U.S. This figure is useful for sizing your Total Addressable Market (TAM). Practical implications:
- TAM for Outreach: If you run an outreach campaign and your average cost-per-acquisition (CPA) or sales cycle changes depending on hospital size, you can model budgets by segmenting those 21,837 COOs into tiers (large systems vs small hospitals).
- List Hygiene & Segmentation: Not every COO is an active decision-maker for every product. Use Ampliz filters — hospital bed count, system affiliation, region, ownership, specialty — to refine to high-propensity targets.
- Scale Campaigns: For enterprise campaigns, target hundreds of COOs across major systems; for performance marketing, target thousands of community hospital COOs with scalable, automated email + SDR follow-up.
Top 20 Hospital Chief Operating Officers 2026
Find the Top 20 US hospital Chief Operating Officers in USA.
| COOs Name | Practicing Hospital | Level | Location | Access Data |
| Kathy Karns | Rose Medical Center | Executive Assistant , Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer | Denver, CO, USA | Signup |
| Jamie Shepherd | Shepherd Center | President & Chief Operating Officer | Atlanta, GA, USA | Signup |
| Debra Terifaj | Anaheim Global Medical Center (Fka Western Medical Center Hospital Anaheim) | Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer | Anaheim, CA, USA | Signup |
| Josh Albertsen | Conficare, Llc | Chief Operating Officer | Louisville, KY, USA | Signup |
| Robert J Wiehe | Uc Health, Llc. | Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer | Cincinnati, OH, USA | Signup |
| Debbie Boswell | Mercy Medical Center, Inc. | Chief Operating Officer & Chief Nursing Officer | Roseburg, OR, USA | Signup |
| Benjamin Willis | Atlantic Integrated Health | Chief Operating Officer | New Bern, NC, USA | Signup |
| Jessica Yoxall | Syracuse Community Health Center Inc | Chief Operating Officer | Syracuse, NY, USA | Signup |
| Justin Saint-jacques | Greater Seacoast Community Health | Chief Operating Officer | Somersworth, NH, USA | Signup |
| Emily Stannard | Lake Superior Hospice | Chief Operating Officer | Marquette, MI, USA | Signup |
| Tanya Field | Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center Inc | Chief Operating Officer | Poplar Bluff, MO, USA | Signup |
| Ikechukwu C Odum | Ini Group Llc | Chief Operating Officer | Ann Arbor, MI, USA | Signup |
| Patricia Drea | Visiting Angels | Chief Operating Officer | Spartanburg, SC, USA | Signup |
| Mary K Bisaga | Womens Care | Chief Operating Officer | West Plains, MO, USA | Signup |
| Britney Rice | Detar Healthcare System | Chief Operating Officer | Victoria, TX, USA | Signup |
| Scott C Wise | Concentra | Chief Operating Officer & Chief Medical Officer, Cbocs | Indianapolis, IN, USA | Signup |
| Bart Millstead | Southern Illinois Healthcare | Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer | Collinsville, IL, USA | Signup |
| Jodi Mahoney | Northern California Behavioral Health System | Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer | Santa Rosa, CA, USA | Signup |
| Carin Hoppe | Family Health Network | Chief Operating Officer | Chicago, IL, USA | Signup |
| Daniel Rincones | Health Care Unlimited Inc | Chief Operating Officer | Rio Grande City, TX, USA | Signup |
Data Source: For complete, verified COO names and direct contact details (email, phone, work address, and department affiliation), those records are available in Ampliz’s 2025 healthcare dataset. Use the dataset to export contact lists and build outreach sequences.
Why Marketing to COOs Matters?
- High Purchase Influence: COOs coordinate cross-departmental buy-in and finalize operational purchases.
- Faster Pilots, Higher Adoption: Operational leaders can greenlight pilots that demonstrate ROI and drive system-wide adoption.
- Scale Potential: Winning a COO in a system often opens doors across multiple facilities.
- Outcome-focused Conversations: COOs want ROI and operational metrics — once convinced, they champion vendor adoption internally.
From a GTM perspective, COOs accelerate sales cycles when engaged with credible operational evidence and low-barrier pilot options.
How to Reach Them Using Ampliz?
Ampliz is designed to make COO-targeted outreach fast, accurate, and scalable. Here’s a practical playbook:
- Define Your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): Decide on bed size, ownership model, geography, and service lines.
- Build the List in Ampliz: Use filters (job title = COO, hospital type, bed count, system affiliation) to generate a list of COOs (from the 21,837 pool).
- Enrich & Segment: Append hospital operational metrics, NPI numbers, and decision-influence map (other leaders like CFO, CNO).
- Prioritize Accounts: Rank by propensity (e.g., hospitals with high readmission rates, long LOS, capacity stress).
- Create Personalized Assets: Develop ROI one-pagers and pilot proposals tailored to each segment.
- Run Multi-Channel Campaigns: Export contact lists to email platforms, CRM, and SDR workflows. Use Ampliz phone numbers for direct outreach and verified emails for sequences.
- Measure & Optimize: Track meetings booked, pilot acceptance rate, conversion to PoC, and final sales. Feed back learnings to refine filters.
- Scale: Use lookalike segments within Ampliz to scale to similar COOs across regions.
Ampliz’s verified contact data dramatically reduces time spent on list-builds and improves deliverability and conversion rates — crucial when contacting an executive audience like COOs.
Conclusion
Hospital Chief Operating Officers (COOs) are among the most influential decision-makers in the U.S. healthcare ecosystem. As the leaders responsible for day-to-day hospital operations, cost control, patient flow, technology adoption, and service efficiency, COOs play a critical role in determining which healthcare products, platforms, and services are implemented across hospitals and health systems. With 21,837 hospital COOs in the United States as per Ampliz 2025 data, this executive segment represents a clearly defined and highly valuable market for healthcare marketers, medical device companies, health IT vendors, and service providers.
Marketing to hospital COOs is important because they focus on measurable outcomes operational efficiency, reduced length of stay, improved capacity utilization, staff productivity, regulatory compliance, and financial sustainability. Vendors that align their messaging with these priorities gain faster executive buy-in, shorter sales cycles, and greater potential for enterprise-wide adoption. Unlike purely clinical or financial leaders, COOs bridge both worlds, making them ideal champions for solutions that deliver tangible operational ROI.
FAQs: Hospital Chief Operating Officers
Q1: How many hospital COOs are there in the US?
A1: As per Ampliz 2025 data, there are 21,837 hospital COOs in the United States.
Q2: How accurate is Ampliz data for reaching hospital COOs?
A2: Ampliz maintains verified, business-grade contact data (emails, direct phones, job title verification). For COOs, Ampliz enriches records with hospital affiliation, bed count, and system ties — making outreach more precise and deliverable.
Q3: Should I target COOs directly or other executives?
A3: COOs are prime for operational solutions. For clinical products, target CMOs or department heads alongside COOs. For financial approvals, include CFOs.
Q4: What outreach sequence works best for COOs?
A4: A multichannel ABM approach: personalized email + one meaningful call + LinkedIn touch + executive brief. For large systems, add a tailored ROI model.
Q5: Is it legal to use contact data for outreach?
A5: Yes, when data is business contact information and used in compliance with applicable laws (e.g., CAN-SPAM in the U.S.). Always follow privacy regulations and Ampliz’s terms.