Providence aims to become the best place to give and receive care by 2030, backed by a technology-enabled transformation strategy.
President and CEO Erik Wexler detailed the Renton, Wash.-based health system’s direction in a June 23 internal message to employees, describing a “perfect storm” in healthcare: proposed federal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, ongoing insurance denials and delays, rising labor costs, inflation and tariffs.
While Providence has taken short-term steps to stabilize its finances, the long-term 2030 strategy centers on three pillars: delivering exceptional care, building a future-ready care model, and driving innovation — with technology as a central enabler.
The first pillar includes standardizing clinical pathways, reducing wait times, expanding access and using real-time patient feedback to improve care. The second focuses on value-based partnerships, growing care in nontraditional settings and addressing health disparities. The third centers on digital innovation, including AI and partnerships through the Providence Global Center in India.
“What we’re seeing now is the culmination of a lot of understanding of where tech is going,” said Sara Vaezy, chief transformation officer of Providence, in an interview with Becker’s. “We say at Providence that we’re following the signs of the times.”
Reducing burden for caregivers and patients
Reducing administrative burden is key to improving both the caregiver experience and financial sustainability, according to Ms. Vaezy.
“It’s not just from a well-being perspective — that’s a core element — but it’s also from a financial perspective,” she said. “It’s really expensive to put so much administrative burden on human beings.”
Providence is rolling out ambient AI across its system to reduce documentation and inbox workloads for clinicians — including physicians, advanced practice providers and nurses.
“We’re aiming to get it out into our entire system — the whole kit and caboodle,” Ms. Vaezy said.
On the patient side, Providence is expanding digital access through tools such as self-scheduling and is building identity-based engagement platforms to personalize care for the more than 5 million patients it serves annually.
Chero Goswami, chief information and digital officer of Providence, emphasized the importance of execution.
“Strategy without an execution path is the slowest form to defeat,” he told Becker’s. “Sometimes our job as tech leaders is not to add more technology to the workflow but remove the non-value/obsolete ones and simplify the process.”
Global support and platform integration
As Providence reimagines care delivery with more virtual, ambulatory and in-home services, it is investing in integrated platform technologies to support data exchange and care continuity, shifting away from fragmented point solutions.
The Providence Global Center in India plays a key role in the innovation pillar. The center operates under a “follow the sun” model — as U.S. employees end their day, employees in India begin theirs, allowing development work to continue around the clock.
“It [the Providence Global Center] allows our caregivers out here to focus on adoption as we go forward, not slowing down the creation of technology that PGC does out there,” Mr. Goswami said.
One recent initiative at the center involves training small models on millions of annotated patient-chatbot interactions to improve workflow navigation and inbox triage.
“We created a golden test,” Ms. Vaezy said. “That golden test is the crux of this sort of safety plan for our inbasket management efforts.”
Tracking progress and defining success
Providence is finalizing short-term goals for 2027 as it tracks progress toward its 2030 vision. Mr. Goswami said the system is measuring progress against five goals: improving quality and safety, increasing productivity, reducing claim denials and enhancing revenue, promoting caregiver well-being, and maintaining cybersecurity.
“This isn’t just a nice-to-have kind of thing,” Ms. Vaezy said. “This is a critical part of our strategy.”
