Machelle Allen is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. Dr. Allen completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi, worked as an attending physician at Harlem and Bellevue hospitals, served as the associate medical director at Bellevue until 2013 when she transitioned to system deputy CMO and was selected to be system CMO in 2017.

Dr. Allen has devoted her career to helping marginalized and underserved patients. Her early career was devoted to women who suffered from addiction or were at risk for HIV infection during their pregnancies. While women’s health and birth outcomes remain a passion, Dr. Allen developed the clinical service line structure which has resulted in the implementation of system-wide clinical initiatives, including level setting of the critically ill patient, tele-neurology, tele-ICU, early ICU mobility, point of care imaging, AI-based EEG interpretations among other underpinning initiatives of the critical care pandemic response.

Most recently, she has shepherded the development of an enterprise-wide tele-radiology service from a single technologic infrastructure to a single work, system-wide worklist. Dr. Allen established an Office of Clinical Operations that instituted surveillance of the health care system’s wastewater for emerging infections at the time of the covid-19 pandemic. This office is currently implementing shared clinical services across the largest municipal hospital system in the nation, among other innovative initiatives.

With the goal of decreasing maternal morbidities and mortalities, Dr. Allen also created a system-wide Office of Women’s Health Services under which the NYC Health + Hospitals Maternal Home was created. The Office of Women’s Health has also partnered with the Office of Behavioral Health to develop a substance use disorder treatment program for pregnant women and their families, realizing that SUD impacts the entire family across generations including partners, children and grandparents.