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Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD

Chief Executive Officer and President

Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD
Location
Biography

About Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD

Tom Mihaljevic, MD, is CEO and President and Morton L. Mandel CEO Chair of Cleveland Clinic, one of America’s top hospitals (U.S. News & World Report). He has led the Cleveland Clinic Health System since January 2018.

He directs a $12.4 billion globally integrated healthcare system with a main campus, 22 hospitals and 226 outpatient locations, including facilities in Florida, Nevada, Toronto, Abu Dhabi and London. Cleveland Clinic has 72,500 caregivers worldwide, including 5,050 physicians and scientists.

Under Dr. Mihaljevic’s leadership, Cleveland Clinic’s mission is: Caring for life, researching for health, educating those who serve.

His vision is to make Cleveland Clinic the best place for care anywhere and the best place to work in healthcare.

Dr. Mihaljevic’s guiding principles are to treat patients and caregivers like family and Cleveland Clinic as our home. He strives to care for each community we serve, and to grow Cleveland Clinic to serve as many people as possible.

Prior to his current role as CEO and President, from 2015 to 2017 Dr. Mihaljevic served as CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi (CCAD), the first U.S. multispecialty hospital to be replicated outside of North America. He oversaw the facility’s opening and established its reputation for clinical excellence, patient experience, research and education.

In 2011 he was appointed Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Heart & Vascular Institute at CCAD. He led recruitment, hiring and training of the new hospital’s workforce.

Dr. Mihaljevic joined Cleveland Clinic in 2004 as a surgeon in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Previously he was director of the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory and an associate surgeon in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also was Assistant Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

He has performed almost 3,000 operations over the course of his career, specializing in minimally invasive and robot-assisted procedures, valve replacement and repair, image-guided surgery and cardiac transplantation.

Dr. Mihaljevic has served on the editorial review boards for prestigious medical journals. He is the author or co-author of more than 140 articles in peer-reviewed publications, and is the author of textbook chapters on robotic and minimally invasive mitral valve surgery and valvular heart disease. In 2005, Dr. Mihaljevic received a patent for a novel system for minimally invasive cardiac surgery.

His research has focused on minimally invasive cardiac surgery, robot-assisted cardiac surgery, intracardiac imaging systems, and analysis of beating-heart intracardiac surgery, among other subjects. He has been an invited speaker at medical symposia and conferences worldwide.

Dr. Mihaljevic is the inaugural holder of the Morton L. Mandel CEO Chair,          an endowment created by an October 2022 gift to Cleveland Clinic from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation to support leadership and innovation.

Dr. Mihaljevic is a member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery,  the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

He is a member of the GE Board of Directors, co-chairman of the Board of Directors of the US-UAE Business Council, a member of the East Coast Executive Summit, and a director on the boards of OneTen, the Greater Cleveland Partnership and the United Way of Greater Cleveland.

A native of Croatia and a U.S. citizen, Dr. Mihaljevic speaks English, German and Croatian.

Education & Professional Highlights

Education & Professional Highlights

Appointed
2004

Education & Fellowships

Residency - Brigham & Women's Hospital
General & Thoracic Surgery
Boston, MA USA
2002

Medical Education - University of Zagreb School of Medicine
Zagreb, Croatia, Croatia
1989

Professional Highlights

  • Innovation Award, Cleveland Clinic, 2006   
  • Innovation Award, Cleveland Clinic, 2007   

Certifications

  • Thoracic Surgery - Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery

Specialty Interests

Robotic cardiac surgery, adult congenital heart disease, heart transplantation, minimally invasive valve surgery, mitral and aortic valve repair and replacement, reoperations, ventricular assist devices

Awards & Honors

  • Dr. Mihaljevic has received funding for "Intracardiac visualization in a beating heart for minimally invasive surgery" from Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center/Department of Defense (TATRC/DoD) and the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (GCIC). Dr. Mihaljevic received the Cleveland Clinic Innovation Award in 2006 and 2007.

Innovations & Patents

  • Cardioscopy 

Memberships

  • American Association for Thoracic Surgery
  • American Board of Thoracic Surgery
  • American College of Cardiology
  • American Heart Association
  • American Medical Association
  • The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Research & Publications

Research & Publications

See publications for Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD.

(Disclaimer: This search is powered by PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed is a third-party website with no affiliation with Cleveland Clinic.)

Industry Relationships

Industry Relationships

Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists may collaborate with the pharmaceutical or medical device industries to help develop medical breakthroughs or provide medical expertise or education. Cleveland Clinic strives to make scientific advances that will benefit patient care and support outside relationships that promise public benefit. In order for the discoveries of Cleveland Clinic physicians' and scientists' laboratories and investigations to benefit the public, these discoveries must be commercialized in partnership with industry. As experts in their fields, Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists are often sought after by industry to consult, provide expertise and education.

To assure professional and commercial integrity in such matters, Cleveland Clinic maintains a program that reviews these collaborations and, when appropriate, puts measures in place to minimize bias that may result from ties to industry. Cleveland Clinic publicly discloses the names of companies when (i) its physicians/scientists receive $5,000 or more per year (or, in rare cases, equity or stock options) for speaking and consulting, (ii) its physicians/scientists serve as a fiduciary, (iii) its physicians/scientists receive or have the right to receive royalties or (iv) its physicians/ scientists hold any equity interest for the physician's/scientist's role as inventor, discoverer, developer, founder or consultant.* In publicly disclosing this information, Cleveland Clinic tries to provide information as accurately as possible about its physicians' and scientists' connections with industry.

As of 4/27/2016, Dr. Mihaljevic has reported no financial relationship with industry that is applicable to this listing. In general, patients should feel free to contact their doctor about any of the relationships and how the relationships are overseen by Cleveland Clinic. To learn more about Cleveland Clinic's policies on collaborations with industry and innovation management, go to our Integrity in Innovation page.

Public Health Service-Reportable Financial Conflicts of Interest. Cleveland Clinic scientists and physicians engage in basic, translational and clinical research activities, working to solve health problems, enhance patient care and improve quality of life for patients. Interactions with industry are essential to bringing the researchers' discoveries to the public, but can present the potential for conflicts of interest related to their research activities. Click here to view a listing of instances where Cleveland Clinic has identified a Public Health Service (PHS)-Reportable Financial Conflict of Interest and has put measures in place to ensure that, to the extent possible, the design, conduct and reporting of the research is free from bias.

* Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists subscribe to the guidance presented in the PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals and the AdvaMed Code of Ethics on Interactions with Health Care Professionals. As such, gifts of substantial value are generally prohibited.

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