About
Dr. Maya Okafor is the Chief Medical Officer at Meridian Health, a 14-hospital system serving 3.2 million patients across New England. She is a board-certified internist and a recognized voice on care redesign, physician burnout, and the operational realities of value-based care. Before Meridian, Maya served as Vice President of Clinical Operations at a large academic medical center, where she led the integration of three community hospitals and reduced 30-day readmissions by 18 percent across the combined system. She writes frequently on the gap between health policy and clinical practice, and serves on the boards of two non-profit health equity organizations.
Writing
Physician Burnout Is an Operational Problem
We have spent ten years treating physician burnout as a wellness issue. The evidence says it is an operational one.
April 8, 2026
Value-Based Care Is Not Failing. The Contracts Are.
After a decade of value-based care experiments, the conventional wisdom is that the model has underperformed. The reality is more specific and more fixable.
March 13, 2026
What Hospital Mergers Get Wrong About Quality
When two hospitals merge, the quality dashboard rarely improves in the first three years. The reason is not what most boards assume.
February 26, 2026