Healthcare artificial intelligence platform Assort Health has named Dr. Sunil “Sunny” Eappen as its first chief chief medical officer.
The strategic appointment brings a veteran hospital administrator and practicing clinician into the company’s executive leadership team as health systems across the United States navigate severe administrative burdens, workforce constraints, and care access delays.
Eappen brings over three decades of clinical, operational, and executive leadership to the role. He most recently served as president and chief executive officer of the University of Vermont Health Network, overseeing a six-hospital academic system with roughly 14,000 employees serving one million patients across Vermont and northern New York.
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Before joining UVM Health Network, Eappen served as chief medical officer and senior vice president of medical affairs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he also served as interim president. Earlier in his career, he was chief medical officer and chair of anesthesiology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Eappen is the son of Indian immigrants. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, followed by a medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
He later earned a master of business administration from the Yale School of Management. Eappen completed his medical residency and fellowship training in anesthesiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
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At Assort Health, Eappen will focus on the deployment of AI agents built to manage patient-facing workflows, including appointment scheduling, referral routing, care gap management, document processing, and prescription refills.
The platform runs on an engine powered by millions of patient interactions and clinical protocols, matching patient scheduling with health system operational logic to expand patient access without adding to provider workloads.
Assort Health co-founders Jon Wang and Jeffery Liu emphasized that Eappen’s experience leading large health networks will help ensure the technology aligns with clinical workflows and electronic health record systems.
Rather than requiring health organizations to restructure around artificial intelligence, Eappen will work alongside health system executives to implement AI tools that optimize capacity and streamline operations.