Johnson named SMD of Surgical Specialties & Digestive Health service line

Jason Johnson, DO, Bariatric Surgery, has been selected as the new senior medical director for the Surgical Specialties and Digestive Health service line in the Peaks Region.

“There are a lot of surgeons and gastroenterologists out there doing incredible work, and I want to help highlight their work and bring forward their best practices so that everyone can learn,” Johnson said. “I also want to bring our specialists together as a region. There is always synergy when you can bring like-minded individuals around a table.”

As senior medical director, Johnson will provide leadership, oversight and support for the development of a culture of high reliability and the measurement of care, identifying opportunities, building relationships and executing strategies to drive the performance and measured improvement of the service line.

“We are committed to providing the highest-quality care for our surgical and GI patients, and we are always looking for the best ways to support our surgeons as they bring their patients into our care sites,” he said.

Johnson will operate in a dyad leadership structure with key organizational relationships across Intermountain Health, collaboratively with all assigned region disciplines including Medical Group, peer service lines and markets, as well as enterprise disciplines, including Clinical Programs, Clinical Shared Services, Clinical Excellence, Research, Medical Education and the clinically integrated network.

"Dr. Johnson's enthusiasm and energy are contagious. His dedication to quality improvement, professional development and partnership will help lead the Surgical Services & Digestive Health service line to uphold the highest standards for surgical care and lead the Peaks region of Intermountain to be essential in the communities we serve," said Jennifer Davenport, MD, associate chief medical officer for the Peaks Region.

Johnson, originally from Winston Salem, NC, grew up in Arvada, Colo. In 1999, he graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from The University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine in Kansas City, after completing his general surgery residency at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center in South Carolina, followed by a fellowship in Minimally Invasive & Bariatric Surgery at the Medical College of Virginia in 2005.

Johnson was commissioned as a major in the United States Army in 2005 and served as a trauma surgeon in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006 and 2008. He was honorably discharged as a lieutenant colonel in 2011 and later joined the United States Navy Reserves in 2017, where he currently holds the rank of captain and serves as the Regional Director of Detachments – Expeditionary Medical Facility Bethesda.

Johnson is board certified in General Surgery and serves as the chair of the Department of General and Trauma Surgery at Saint Joseph Hospital, where he also practices robotic and bariatric surgery.

In addition to being the program director of the General Surgery Residency and a member of the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee, he became the interim Trauma medical director at St. James Hospital in Butte, Mont., in March 2024 and is well published, establishing himself as a national leader in academic surgery.

“Moving forward, my clinical practice will be emergency general surgery, primarily,” he said. “I still will be able to spend a half-day per week teaching residents, which is a huge satisfier for me! I have always been in resident education, and we were able to build it into my current job responsibilities and work week.”

Physicians can reach Johnson with congratulations and ideas for the service line at jason.johnson1@imail.org.