(New York, NY – February 21, 2025) NYC Health + Hospitals Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Machelle Allen, MD, is among the honorees recognized by amNY Metro and PoliticsNY in their annual list of “2025 Black Power Players.” The list honors influential Black leaders who are leading efforts to positively impact New Yorkers across the city and state. Dr. Allen is recognized for her outstanding leadership in health care, her commitment to advancing health equity, and her efforts to improve medical care for underserved communities. Dr. Allen established the Office of Clinical Operations, which instituted surveillance of the health care system’s wastewater for emerging infections. She also created a systemwide Office of Women’s Health Services, which launched the Maternal Medical Home Program– one of only a few in New York State. The 2025 Black Power Players list is part of a monthly series by PoliticsNY and amNY Metro on New York’s ‘Power Players’, including business executives, educators, government affairs experts, and nonprofit directors.
“Thank you to amNY & PoliticsNY for including me on this esteemed list of health care leaders,” said NYC Health + Hospitals SVP and CMO Machelle Allen, MD. “I am so proud to represent a health system that provides high-quality, comprehensive care to New York City’s most vulnerable populations. We must never forget that health care is a basic human right. It is our duty to create spaces where anyone – no matter their race, ethnicity, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, country of origin, immigration status, or ability to pay – can access services that are vital to their well-being and that of their families. We are the Doctors without Borders within our borders.”
Dr. Allen is a veteran of the municipal health care system: She completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi, worked as an attending physician at Harlem and Bellevue hospitals, and served as the Associate Medical Director at Bellevue until 2013 when she became the System’s Deputy CMO. Dr. Allen was promoted to SVP and CMO in 2017.
Early in her career, Dr. Allen treated pregnant patients with substance use disorder and those who were at risk for HIV infection. Dr. Allen also developed the clinical service line structure that resulted in the implementation of systemwide clinical initiatives, including the underpinnings of the critical care COVID-19 pandemic response:
- Level setting of the critically-ill patient
- Tele-intensive care unit (ICU)
- Point-of-care imaging
- Early ICU mobility
- Artificial intelligence-based electroencephalogram (EEG) interpretations
- Tele-neurology
In response to the mental health crisis seen in New York City, the behavioral health service line under Dr. Allen’s leadership launched B-HEARD (Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division) program in 2021, which deploys social workers along with EMS personnel as first responders, in lieu of police officers.
Dr. Allen is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.
