Most health systems are still figuring out how to govern AI. Children’s Nebraska in Omaha is already planning for a future where its nurses and physicians build their own apps.
Ryan Cameron, executive vice president and chief information and innovation officer, calls it the organization’s biggest swing for 2027: a comprehensive, enterprisewide effort to democratize software development across the clinical workforce. The goal is to give every provider and nurse the tools, training and pipeline to take an idea from concept to working application — safely and with proper oversight.
“We have a firm commitment, not only to say that everybody can be a developer, but how do we make sure that everybody is a good developer, giving them the tools and resources and the support mechanism where if they have that great idea and they want to take that first design step, they can do the vibe coding,” Mr. Cameron said on an upcoming episode of the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.” “What is the pipeline that we can provide and create where we’re protecting data, we’re being good stewards, we’re designing things so that they have resiliency and work in the long term. We’re building all those mechanisms so far as to have our own in-house development and we have our own customized training program for our workforce.”
The vision centers on Children’s Nebraska’s Mammal Innovation Center, which is the physical home for this effort and a space where clinical staff can come to design and build their own tools.
Underpinning the push is a trend away from the traditional SaaS model. Mr. Cameron argued that expecting health systems to adapt to vendor-designed workflows — built to be good enough for 1,000 customers rather than perfect for one — is no longer a winning strategy. AI has lowered the cost and complexity of custom development to the point where health systems can and should build for their own workflows.
“If you’re not focused on that, and you’re really trying to say, ‘We know best, and this is the workflow that works the best for 90%’,” he said. “That’s no longer a winning strategy.”
The mechanism making this possible is vibe coding — using AI to generate functional software with minimal traditional engineering expertise. While some IT executives look down on vibe coding as unsophisticated or inappropriate, Mr. Cameron sees its value and wants to find ways to safely incorporate it into the broader team’s workflows.
“The reality is that vibe coding is perfectly good coding,” he said. “You just have some additional quality assurance steps that you need to do to make sure that it’s rock solid, because you’re coming from a place where you’ve made your designer and democratize the process as close to the user as possible,” he said. “I absolutely love that. I think the best products are born from people who are experiencing the problems firsthand, not necessarily from an engineer’s interpretation of what that happens to be.”
The health system’s agentic AI platform, Hey Medicaid — built to help patients and families navigate the Medicaid recertification process — is an example of what becomes possible when clinical priorities drive development rather than vendor roadmaps.
“We’re committed to that project and it’s really starting to take off,” said Mr. Cameron. “The big swing we’re taking right now is around command centers, called Synapse. This is n’t new in healthcare, but what is possible inside of a command center is brand new. It’s a lot more bed management, throughput, making sure you’re efficient with your use of clinical space and really digging into real-time data and clinical decision support because those things are really starting to come together.”
Children’s Nebraska is formalizing that ethos into an organizational goal spanning the entire institution. The training program, the internal development pipeline and the Mammal Innovation Center are all components of what Mr. Cameron described as a very comprehensive plan.
“I would love for a reality where we build it where all of our providers and nurses can come to the Mammal Innovation Center at Children’s Nebraska and create their own apps,” Mr. Cameron said. “I think it’s a very real possibility.”
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