Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare is pushing into a new phase of digital transformation centered on data, personalization and AI-driven coordination.
Joel Vengco, chief information and digital officer, is central to the transformation. During an interview with the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast,” Mr. Vengco outlined an ambitious agenda grounded in the system’s mission “to improve the health and healing of all” and its vision “to be the most trusted for personalized coordinated care,” which he said naturally drives a focus on access, equity and affordability.
Hartford HealthCare now spans more than 500 locations and its enterprise digital strategy is designed to support patients across that footprint in more seamless and predictable ways.
The most instructive part of Hartford’s journey may be the discipline of the underlying data work. Mr. Vengco said the system deliberately started with building a single platform for structured, standardized data that could power more sophisticated patient experiences.
“The first thing that we started out with was really how do we harness that data, and it’s really about bringing that data into a platform, commingling that data, standardizing that data,” he said
Cloud infrastructure is essential leverage to achieve the right compute power and scale. With that foundation in place, the organization is now designing more personalized interactions.
“We have to know our patients,” said Mr. Vengco. “To know our patients, you have to have data about them, at the very least harness the data and really use the data to understand them, personalize their experience, and even create the next best action.”
Hartford has implemented “table stakes” capabilities like a digital front door that lets patients complete tasks such as check-in and forms online. What comes next is consumer-level experience design modeled after industries like travel and streaming. Hartford’s goal is to match the intuitiveness and predictive feel of platforms that anticipate user needs using deep data and AI.
“It’s really about how do you match the experiences of consumers in other industries,” said Mr. Vengco. “When you think of Netflix or booking travel, all of that takes a lot of information and some level of digital twinning or benchmarking. Then certainly there is some level of prediction and artificial intelligence to get you what you need when you need it.”
As Hartford looks ahead to 2026, AI agents are a major focus. The next generation of agentic tools will be much more sophisticated than today’s assistants and give health systems the tools to operate more like successful tech platforms.
“Assistants provide you with information or insights and answer questions,” said Mr. Vengco. “An agent does that plus takes an action, like schedules an appointment for you or cancels one or completes orders.”
His team has been working on agents for two years and views them as companions for patients, clinicians and administrative staff. Mr. Vengco envisions a future where patients use personalized agents to navigate symptoms, medications, next steps and available services without waiting days for answers.
“Oftentimes, patients will wait days, if not weeks, to get an answer,” he said. “Sometimes those answers are just about ‘what do I do next’ or ‘what is this? Remind me again what this is.’”
The near-term AI capabilities are also transforming the healthcare workforce with administrative automation.
“Our work is a lot of hunting and pecking and then taking action on information that we have identified or discovered,” said Mr. Vengco. “There are low level things that agents could and should do.”
These capabilities may free up anywhere from five minutes to an hour per task and must be paired with intentional role redesign.
“We have to really get in front of that in terms of how do you really reimagine or redesign someone’s role or job, and look for those skills or tasks that could be automated and then begin to work with them in elevating their work and leveraging AI to do more, of something different or maybe something more of high value,” he said.
As health systems nationwide face rising consumer expectations, staffing pressure and accelerating AI capabilities, Mr. Vengco sees enormous potential for organizations prepared to rebuild their digital foundations and rethink how work gets done.
“We’re really excited about the agentic era, and what that can offer our patients as well as our colleagues,” he said.
