If you’re a digital health leader today, you’re likely balancing a long list of priorities from AI momentum and rising cybersecurity risks to shifting budgets, workforce strain, and a modernization journey that rarely feels linear.
I’ve spent 13 years at Nordic and more than 20 years in healthcare helping leaders navigate this complexity. While I’m new to the role of Senior Vice President of Client Partnerships, the heart of my work hasn’t changed: I listen first. I want to know what your teams are facing, where friction exists, and what kind of progress would make a meaningful difference.
Industry events like ViVE and HIMSS, and conversations I have with digital health leaders throughout the year, reinforce how important it is to meet organizations where they are. Whether we’re talking in a convention center, on a project kickoff call, or during a strategy session, successful health IT modernization begins with understanding where you are today, what’s working, what’s blocking progress, and what your teams need most.
“Where are you on your journey?”
Every health system is in a different place technically, operationally, and culturally, and the path to modernization can take many forms. While emerging tools like AI open new possibilities, organizations see the greatest value when they build on a strong foundation.
That foundation includes:
- Governance that enables clear, timely decisions
- Workflows that support clinicians and other healthcare professionals
- Organizational policies that empower change
- High quality, accessible data
- Change management that sticks
- Thoughtful regulatory and ethical considerations
When I talk with CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CDAOs, CNIOs, CMIOs, and other digital health leaders, I like to begin with three simple questions:
- What problems are you trying to solve now?
- What challenges are slowing you down or creating friction?
- Where are you on your digital transformation journey, and what would meaningful progress look like in the next 90 days?
These answers help focus health IT initiatives on strategic outcomes and identify the highest value, most achievable next steps.
Helping healthcare leaders navigate complexity without overwhelm
I often refer to myself, jokingly, as a cruise director. To me, that means helping clients navigate complex journeys by connecting them with the right people, expertise, and resources exactly when they need them.
Healthcare leaders don’t need more noise or more vendors. They need a partner who listens, understands their world, brings the right people together, and sees the work through. Modernization succeeds when people, strategy, technology, and processes align.
Connecting the dots across platforms, people, and priorities
Most healthcare IT challenges don’t live inside a single system. They live between:
- EHR, enterprise resource planning, and customer relationship management
- Clinical, operational, and IT teams
- Internal priorities and external partners
When initiatives are pursued in isolation, unintended consequences multiply: duplicated work, fragmented experiences, inconsistent data, and frustrated teams. Real progress happens when someone is connecting the dots across:
-
Technology
-
Workforce
-
Operations
-
Patient experience
-
Finance
Organizations move faster and more effectively when they have a partner who can flex with their needs, linking decisions to people, workflows, and strategic objectives, and adapting support as the journey evolves. That’s the spirit of how we work at Nordic.
AI, cybersecurity, and interoperability: Why readiness matters more than adoption
AI, cybersecurity, and interoperability are three areas where readiness pays off. While I’m not a deep technical expert on these topics (that expertise sits with my colleagues who specialize in these areas), I spend a great deal of time in conversation with the leaders who are working through them every day. Across those discussions, certain patterns consistently emerge.
AI: Powerful, but only as strong as your foundations
Even with growing AI momentum, underlying challenges like fragmented data, documentation variability, and infrastructure gaps can limit how quickly AI can scale.
Teams making real strides tend to focus on:
- Human‑centered AI that reduces documentation burden
- Use cases that fit naturally into existing workflows
- Richer inputs (e.g., video, ambient data) that help AI “see” what clinicians see
- Responsible governance that ensures safety and trust
AI delivers value only when the foundations beneath it are strong.
Cybersecurity: A strategic capability for patient safety and continuity
Cybersecurity can’t be treated as an isolated track; it must be embedded in every modernization decision. Across the industry, teams making meaningful progress tend to:
-
Shift to identity-first security, recognizing that verifying who is accessing systems is now frontline defense
-
Adopt isolated recovery environments to restore critical application access quickly and safely
-
Strengthen clinical and business continuity planning so care and operations can continue during disruption
Resilience requires strong protection and the ability to recover fast.
Interoperability: The connective tissue of modern healthcare
Interoperability is more than data exchange; it determines whether information is:
- Consistent
- Secure
- Accessible
- Usable
- Available at the moment of need
High performing organizations prioritize connecting workflows across systems, not just integrating systems themselves. Interoperability is what turns fragmented data into actionable information that supports care, operations, and strategy.
Avoiding the “do everything at once” trap
Innovation pressure can push organizations into overextension, which results in burning out teams, introducing security gaps, stalling adoption, and limiting value.
Health systems that maintain momentum take a focused, strategic approach. They set priorities, manage risk, and avoid spreading teams too thin. Progress accelerates when decisions are grounded in the realities of people, capacity, and goals.
What innovative healthcare IT leaders are really optimizing for
In my conversations with digital health leaders, I hear remarkably aligned aspirations. Leaders want to create:
- Better patient experiences
- Happier clinicians and staff
- Operational efficiency that doesn't compromise care
- Technology decisions that help attract and retain top talent
- A flexible, scalable technology ecosystem
The organizations that get there share a pattern: trusted relationships, strong foundations, and shared ownership.
Meeting you where you are
Your modernization roadmap should be built around your starting point, your needs, your goals, and your realities. I’m always eager to listen, understand where you are, and help you move forward with confidence.
If you’d like to talk about your digital transformation journey, what’s working, what isn’t, and what progress could look like, I’d love to connect.
Want to discuss your challenges, goals, and priorities with Nordic’s health IT experts during ViVE or HIMSS? Visit the links below to book a 1:1 strategy session that fits into your conference schedule.