Biographical Information
Cristy Page, MD, MPH, is a family physician and healthcare executive who delivers excellence and value through teamwork, partnerships, and innovation. She is also a national leader in academic medicine, rural healthcare delivery, and workforce development.
She currently serves as CEO of UNC Health and Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. She has previously served as the President of UNC Health Enterprises and UNC Health’s Chief Academic Officer.
As CEO of UNC Health, she leads a statewide network of 20 hospital campuses, 900 clinics, and more than 55,000 teammates working to fulfill the system’s mission to improve the health and well-being of the people of North Carolina. She also serves as Dean of the UNC School of Medicine, one of the nation’s leading public medical schools, which graduates more than 200 new physicians each year. Its over 2,000 faculty includes two Nobel laureates and generates more than $600 million in research funding annually. Page leads a wide array of projects, including the system’s ambitious Forward Together 2030 strategy. Page identifies high-impact opportunities to best meet the needs of patients, teammates and communities, designing strategies to provide better care while enabling growth consistent with the organization’s core mission. She highlights and identifies new business ventures, ensuring they are fully developed and have the resources needed to achieve both growth and operational objectives. Page develops partnerships to support diversified growth that meet patient needs and generate value.
From 2019-2025, she served as UNC School of Medicine Executive Dean. As Executive Dean, Page oversaw a continual increase in research funding. In FY24, funding reached $649 million, growing by more than $150 million since 2019. Also under Page’s leadership, the UNC School of Medicine opened Roper Hall, an award-winning medical education building that will accommodate an expanded class size to better meet the healthcare needs of North Carolina.
Page’s vision and leadership have also helped expand the clinical, research and educational footprint of the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Health. She has been instrumental in a partnership with Novant Health to work together in the Wilmington, North Carolina, region. This work includes expanded educational opportunities for medical and other health affairs students, as well as access to clinical trials and expanded pediatric specialty care in the region.
Page’s leadership also expands well beyond UNC. As the founder of the Rural GME and Teaching Health Centers, Page and colleagues have worked to enhance access to care in rural areas nationwide. The consortium focuses on increasing access to care through support for the development of new rural residency programs across multiple specialties as well as health policy and health workforce scholarship. The consortium has produced extensive research on rural health workforce development and successfully informed policies that support increased access to care.
A native of Wilmington and life-long North Carolinian, Page first came to UNC as a Morehead Scholar before going on to complete her Medical Doctorate, Master of Public Health, family medicine residency, chief resident position, and faculty development fellowship in Chapel Hill. She is a Distinguished Professor of Family Medicine and has served on the UNC School of Medicine faculty since 2005.
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