Health systems are moving quickly to advance their digital strategies, but a persistent gap continues to surface between what executive leadership envisions and what clinicians can realistically use. Closing that gap is increasingly what determines whether digital transformation succeeds or stalls.
During a recent conversation hosted by Becker’s Healthcare and Xealth, leaders from Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, West Orange, N.J.-based RWJBarnabas Health, Neptune, N.J.-based Jersey Shore University Medical Center and Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad Health examined why digital strategies break down and how organizations can keep executives and clinicians in lockstep.
Here are four key takeaways from the conversation.
1. Bring clinicians in early
Panelists agreed that digital initiatives often stall because clinicians are brought into the process only after the roadmap has already been established.
Pam Austin, former CIO and senior vice president at Ballad Health, argued that organizations should give clinical informatics leaders real decision-making authority over prioritization and workflow design rather than limiting them to an advisory role. She also emphasized that this involvement should be permanent, not assembled on a project-by-project basis.
Andy Anderson, MD, chief medical and quality officer at RWJBarnabas Health, broadened the definition of the stakeholders involved. “Your customers in digital health are really twofold,” Dr. Anderson said. “One is your own employees, your doctors, your nurses and it’s also your patients and families.”
Harpreet Pall, MD, chief medical officer at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, pointed to a shared governance model with clinicians embedded on the IT committee as a way to reduce fragmentation and improve adoption.
Naomi Lenane, chief information officer and senior vice president of information services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, added that clinical informaticists representing their peers should continue caring for patients. That firsthand experience, she said, keeps digital decisions grounded in real clinical workflows instead of theoretical ones.
2. Let patient needs drive technology decisions
Several panelists cautioned against allowing technology to dictate the agenda.
“Start with a clinical problem upfront, so that we don’t have a technology that we’re trying to find a home for,” Dr. Pall said.
Ms. Lenane described the patient as the common point of alignment. When finance, IT and clinicians all focus on patient impact, she said, projects are more likely to stay on track.
That patient-first approach also requires designing for equity. Ms. Lenane and Ms. Austin both stressed the importance of building solutions that work for every patient, including those who cannot or choose not to adopt new digital tools. “Care for the patient has to be for all patients in all scenarios,” Ms. Austin said, pointing to rural patients who may lack reliable Wi-Fi.
The panel agreed that digital transformation should expand access without creating new barriers to care.
3. Spend time where care happens
When it comes to gathering feedback, the panel favored observation over surveys.
Rather than relying solely on one-time surveys or ticketing systems, Ms. Lenane described sending analysts and informatics staff into clinics to collect real-time, one-on-one feedback. She also noted that leaders need to frame the same problem differently for different audiences, a clinician’s patient wait time is an executive’s throughput metric.
Panelists also argued that digital maturity should be measured by whether technology fades into the background of care.
“It’s whether the technology disappears into the background, it disappears into the workflow, instead of becoming one more thing that a clinician has to manage around,” Ms. Austin said.
For Ms. Lenane, maturity is also reflected in how clinicians respond once a tool is deployed. “It’s no longer just about adoption, it’s about engagement,” she said.
She encouraged leaders to actively seek feedback from skeptics, arguing that winning over the clinician most resistant to change is one of the clearest indicators that a solution is working.
4. Scale what works
Ambient AI documentation emerged as the panel’s clearest example of successful digital transformation.
“Ambient voice technology has really been a home run for us. It’s a win-win,” Dr. Anderson said, crediting a deliberate pilot-then-scale approach rather than a big-bang rollout.
Ms. Lenane attributed its traction to how intuitive it is for clinicians and patients alike and said Dana-Farber is now extending the technology into nursing and pharmacy.
Ricky Choi, MD, strategic medical advisor at Xealth and head of digital health at Samsung Electronics, pointed to a broader challenge: digital sprawl. In Samsung’s research — a survey of roughly 333 health system executives and physicians followed by about 50 interviews — organizations were often aligned on their vision but divided on execution and outcomes.
With some health systems running dozens or even more than 100 digital tools, Dr. Choi urged leaders to inventory existing solutions, identify gaps and redundancies, and establish an operating model for integration and governance.
For leaders, the biggest risk is no longer a shortage of technology but an abundance of it. The real responsibility is helping their organizations distinguish the tools that solve meaningful problems.
“Treat digital transformation as an operating discipline, rather than a project that has an end date,” Ms. Austin said.
View a recording of the webinar in its entirety here.
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