The U.S. healthcare system, arguably known as the most digital, now has a newly appointed chief digital officer.

And a key reason Kaiser Permanente has named Prat Vemana to its top digital healthcare post is because of his long experience in online retailing and ecommerce.

Vemana will join Kaiser Permanente after working in a wide variety of mobile commerce and ecommerce roles at Home Depot Inc., which grew ecommerce sales by 26% to $8.54 billion in 2018. Home Depot is No. 7 on the 2019 Internet Retailer Top 1000.

Most recently, Vemana worked as Home Depot’s chief product and experience officer. From 2015 until August 2018, he served as Home Depot’s vice president online. For five years and prior to joining Home Depot, Vemana worked as vice president, global ecommerce and analytics at office supplies chain retailer Staples Inc.

Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s biggest healthcare systems, is one of the few organizations that breaks out year-over year-growth in key digital and mobile health metrics. In 2018, the average daily number of Kaiser patients and website users who logged onto KP.org and via its mobile apps reached 850,000, an increase of 6.3% from 800,000 logins in 2017.

In 2018, about 30 million prescriptions were filled online, an increase of 17.6% from 25.5 million prescriptions in 2017. Kaiser patients also went online more to check their lab results last year but at about the same rate as the previous year. About 50 million lab results were viewed by patients in 2018, an increase of 2.7% from 48.7 million lab results in 2016.

Kaiser chief digital officer Prat Vemana

At Kaiser, Vemana will lead” the ongoing development and execution of Kaiser Permanente’s digital vision and strategy, in collaboration with internal health plan, hospital, and medical group teams,” Kaiser says.

He will report to Kaiser chief information officer and executive vice president Dick Daniels, with joint accountability to Bernard J. Tyson, chairman and CEO, Kaiser says. “We’ve made tremendous investments in building our digital platforms and creating greater access for our members,” Tyson says. “Prat is the perfect choice to help lead and guide the future of our digital health and wellness ecosystem.”