Every health system CIO is navigating the same set of simultaneous pressures: transform, cut costs, increase efficiency and meet rising expectations from clinicians and patients. Deb Anderson, CIO of Evanston, Ill.-based Endeavor Health, says the default response to those pressures of requesting more technology makes the problem worse.
“It’s consequential being a CIO because we’re being asked to transform. At the same time, we’re being asked to manage costs, at the same time, become more efficient, and at the same time, respond to the increasing demands of our clinician, our patients, or our consumers,” Ms. Anderson said during a “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast” interview recorded at the 11th Annual IT + Revenue Cycle Conference in Chicago.
Artificial intelligence sits at the center of that pressure. Vendors and boards alike are pushing health systems to move fast on adoption. Ms. Anderson’s position is that AI is worth having but only as one instrument among several, not a solution in itself.
“AI introduces tremendous value, it’s just a lever,” she said. “So we have AI. We have automation. We have digital. We have data. Those are all tools that we can use.”
Health system CIOs entering 2026 broadly share that skepticism toward tool accumulation, though Ms. Anderson makes the argument in sharper terms.
“Technology alone won’t solve that,” she said. “In fact, you can’t fight all of those. We’re just adding tech. That’s counter to what we should be looking at because that increases friction, that increases complexity.”
A growing number of health systems are scrutinizing point solutions and AI-adjacent add-ons that have failed to deliver the returns they promised. Endeavor Health’s response goes further: the nine-hospital system is actively removing complexity from its technology environment rather than adding to it.
The most concrete example of that strategy is Passport, a project to consolidate three separate instances of Epic into a single EHR. Phase one launched in August. Phase two is scheduled for November.
“It’s not only about creating a foundation for technology, but what it does do for us, it is looking at how do we create that one Endeavor Health,” she said. “How do we create the single experience for our patients when they come in the door.”.
Rather than deploying new tools on top of a fragmented infrastructure, Ms. Anderson said the focus is on extracting value from what already exists.
“We’re focused on platforms that address those needs that we already own and removing the tech debt,” she said. “We’re looking at how do we ensure that the orchestration and the workflows map to what our clinicians and what our team members and what our patients need and require all through a seamless environment.”
The payoff Ms. Anderson is focused on is a direct, traceable line between technology investment and clinical and operational outcome. Get that connection right, she said, and the upside is considerable.
“Our opportunity for growth is to ensure that we have made it so simple and as frictionless as possible that we can extract the value and continue to build upon that. If we can do that, capability is ours, and it’s limitless. We’re only limited by how much change we can absorb and take on,” Ms. Anderson said.
Underlying the strategy is conviction in the idea that technology, regardless of how sophisticated, is only as valuable as the people using it.
“At the end of the day, it’s not about the tech. At the end of the day, it’s about the people. People use the tech,” she said.
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