NCHA Honors David Kirk, MD, with Clinical Leadership Award
Dr. David Kirk, chief clinical integration officer at WakeMed, has been awarded the North Carolina Healthcare Association (NCHA) 2025 Clinical Leadership Award. This award honors an individual who has demonstrated exemplary clinical leadership in care transformation through innovation and improvement. Dr. Kirk received the award July 16 at NCHA’s Summer Membership Meeting.
For more than 22 years, he has served WakeMed and the surrounding community with unwavering dedication, providing exceptional care to critically ill patients while leading efforts to advance quality, technology, and access across the system. His unique blend of clinical expertise, data-driven insight, and visionary leadership has improved health outcomes and reshaped how care is delivered.
As executive medical director of WakeMed’s Critical Care Medicine and eICU, an innovative telemedicine critical care platform, Dr. Kirk oversees critical care operations across three hospitals, managing 40 physicians, 500 nurses, and quality initiatives that have led to meaningful improvements in patient care. His development of multidisciplinary rounding processes and systemwide upgrades to ICU metrics have significantly reduced ventilator days, ICU length of stay, costs, and mortality.
With Dr. Kirk directing WakeMed’s eICU, WakeMed has become one of only two health systems nationwide to pilot predictive analytics in critical care. His co-authored study, published in CHEST in 2023, found the pilot system to be five times more accurate at predicting patient deterioration than widely used monitoring systems. This groundbreaking work supports clinicians with earlier alerts, improving outcomes while reducing burnout and optimizing staffing.
Appointed as WakeMed’s Chief Clinical Integration Officer in 2023, Dr. Kirk now leads cross-functional teams to improve care quality and efficiency through process standardization and data analytics. His initiatives have improved speed, outcomes, and cost of care delivery systemwide.
Most recently, he has championed fair access to personalized medicine by launching PreciselyYou, WakeMed’s genomics-based precision medicine program. The initiative will provide DNA screening at no cost to 100,000 participants over four years. By identifying genetic risk factors for diseases like cancer and heart disease, PreciselyYou aims to empower individuals and communities with actionable insights and early intervention opportunities.
Alongside his executive leadership, Dr. Kirk continues to serve as a bedside intensivist, maintaining a hands-on role in patient care. He is known for fostering a collaborative environment among staff, mentoring emerging leaders, and embedding empathy into every initiative he leads.
Dr. Kirk earned his medical degree from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine and completed his residency and fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine, and Critical Care Medicine.
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About NCHA
Founded in 1918, North Carolina Healthcare Association (NCHA) is the united voice of the North Carolina healthcare community. Representing more than 130 hospitals, health systems, physician groups and other healthcare organizations, NCHA works with our members to improve the health of North Carolina communities by advocating for sound public policies and collaborative partnerships and by providing insights, services, support, and education to expand access to high quality, efficient, affordable, and integrated health care for all North Carolinians.
For more information, contact:
Stephanie Strickland, NCHA, sstrickland@ncha.org, 919-677-4241
Kristin Kelly, WakeMed, krkelly@wakemed.org, 919-350-5921