Emerging technology has greatly improved efficiency at most health systems. Currently, it’s paramount for systems to make the right digital investments.
Becker’s asked 55 healthcare leaders which metric they monitor to see if their digital investments are positively impacting behavior at the front line.
The leaders featured below are speaking at Becker’s 11th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Conference, Sept. 14-Sep. 17, 2026, at the Hilton Chicago.
If you would like to join the event as a speaker, please contact Scott King at sking@beckershealthcare.com.
As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is connecting with healthcare leaders who will speak at the event to get their perspectives on key issues in the industry.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: Which metric do you watch most closely to know whether your digital investments are actually changing behavior at the front line?
Katherine McPherson. Director of Human Resources Operations, CommonSpirit Health (Chicago, Il.): There are two metrics that are top of mind for my organization as critical in assessing how our digital investments are changing behavior and improving operational efficiencies and those are a combination of the User Adoption Rates and the Feature Utilization Rates. The culture change to adopting usage of our digital investments is not just our employees using the technologies but optimizing the various features.
If someone just uses the bare, basic digital function and not the broader functions available then you do not truly have true user adoption and the ROI you project may not fully be realized. It is the depth and number of features that are regularly and consistently being used by the employees in our health system that makes the magic happen for digital acceptance and utilization. These two foundational metrics will directly impact important metrics including: Operational Efficiency, Patient Satisfaction, Employee Engagement (eNPS), Cost Savings, Decreased burn-out ratios of physicians and providers and ultimately our ROI.
Kim Bussie, PhD. Assistant Vice President of Revenue Integrity and HIM, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pa.): In the middle revenue cycle, the metric I watch most closely is clean claim rate. When digital tools drive fewer denials, reduce rework, and improve first-pass resolution, that’s the clearest signal our investments are truly changing frontline behavior.
James Matera, DO. Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, CentraState Medical Center (Freehold, N.J.): I think when we are looking at where to expend capital on digital platforms or solutions, no matter what the application, we must see specific clinical decisions or decision making that changed because of the tool. It must be reproducible, measurable and actionable. If none of that is evident, the tool has not performed up to the standard we expect, and reassessment of its usefulness is paramount. If it can meet those standards, we measure how well we’ve done and then we achieve success.
Joey Seliski. Director of Digital Health Strategy and Operations, Allegheny Health Network (Pittsburgh, Pa.): Utilization is the single most important metric we monitor to understand whether a digital investment is truly changing frontline behavior. If clinicians consistently use a tool month over month, it tells us several things at once: the technology is embedded in the right place within the EHR or workflow, it’s intuitive and low burden, and it clearly solves a problem clinicians face every day. High, stable utilization is the leading indicator; the clinical, operational, and financial improvements naturally follow when the tool becomes part of routine practice.
Hamid Ghanbari. Chair of FCVC Innovation Program, University of Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor, Mi.): I use Effective Utilization Rate (EUR) = “used correctly when it mattered.”
Broadly this is % of eligible moments where the frontline actually does the new thing we paid for. Behavior change shows up when the tool is used at the exact decision point w.e are interested in.
This is how I do it:
• Denominator = eligible opportunities (the moments the behavior should happen)
Examples: eligible patient encounters, eligible orders, eligible handoffs, eligible discharge med recs.
• Numerator = completed target action (the “new behavior” you want)
Examples: guideline order set used, risk score calculated and acted on, message sent via the new pathway, checklist completed before sign-off.
• Metric = Numerator / Denominator (tracked by unit, role, shift, and team)
Mark Townsend, MD. Chief Clinical Digital Ventures Officer, Bon Secours Mercy Health (Cincinnati, Oh.): The front-line metric that is most meaningful specific to changing behavior is adoption. People ‘vote with their feet’. If a technology is helpful, you see it being quickly adopted. If a technology is cumbersome, adoption lags. Said differently, it is hard to sell a rotten apple. We use problem-statements of Bon Secours Mercy Health to source our investment pipeline; if the adoption curve is moving quickly, we are more likely to turn a relationship into an investment through our venture arm, Accrete Health Partners.
Laren Tan, MD. Chief Operating Officer, Loma Linda University Faculty Medical Group (Loma Linda, Ca.): It’s tempting to search for a single, elegant metric that declares success, but the more important question comes first: what behavior are we actually trying to change? The real aim of digital investment to me is not efficiency alone, but the restoration of a clinician–patient relationship that has grown fragmented and distant. Technology should never push us further apart; it should bring us closer, allowing clinicians to truly “touch” what matters physically in the exam room, mentally in understanding a patient’s life, and spiritually in honoring the whole person before us.
When digital tools strip away administrative burden and late-night charting, they create space for simpler, higher-quality encounters rooted in presence and trust rather than documentation demands. If that shift in behavior and culture occurs, these are among the measures that I closely follow: clinician retention, timely encounter closure, access, and even reclaimed personal time outside the clinic. And if there were a way to measure it, perhaps the most telling indicator would be the quiet return of joy to the practice of medicine.
Michelle Myers. Senior Director of Revenue Cycle Management, Boulder Care (Portland, Or.): In revenue cycle management, the clearest sign that digital investments are changing behavior isn’t found in higher dashboard metrics but in lower human touches. Touch-reduction reveals what glossy adoption numbers can’t: whether staff trust the system enough to let it carry the work. When automation quietly eliminates rework, teams stop reacting and start preventing, signaling that technology has truly reshaped their day-to-day habits. In the revenue cycle, fewer manual interventions don’t just save minutes; they show that digital tools have become the preferred path rather than the mandated one. Leaders who want to measure real transformation should watch for the moment work gets lighter—because that’s when behavior genuinely shifts.
Robb Wetmore. Director of Digital Healthcare, Variety Care (Oklahoma City, Ok.): The metric I watch most closely is repeat behavior without a nudge.
When the same clinicians and patients choose a digital workflow again—without reminders, mandates, or weather emergencies—that’s real behavior change.
The moment a digital tool stops feeling like a project and starts feeling like the obvious choice, adoption becomes durable and the ROI eventually follows.
Tony Sillemon, PsyD. Director of Community Health, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Sutter Health (Sacramento, Ca.): The metric I watch most closely is frontline workflow adoption tied to outcome movement, not just utilization. Specifically, I look at whether digital tools reduce manual work, shorten cycle times, or improve reliability (e.g., fewer handoffs, fewer workarounds, faster task completion), and whether that change is sustained over time. If clinicians and staff are consistently using the tool because it makes their work easier or safer, and we see corresponding improvements in access, throughput, or quality, that’s when I know the investment is actually changing behavior at the front line.
Klaus Thaler, MD. Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, CHI Creighton University System (Omaha, Ne.): The metrics I watch most closely to know whether our digital investments are changing behavior at the front line are Inpatient Length of Stay (LOS) and Emergency Department (ED) Throughput.
Richard Zane, MD. Chief Medical and Innovation Officer, UCHealth (Aurora, Co.): Every single investment or deployment have exacting measures of success and adoption with clear and predetermined escalation plans. The measures are specific to the deployment but range from measures of use and adoption, harm avoided, efficiency gained to lives saved.
Brian Hasselfeld, MD. Executive Medical Director of Digital Health and Innovation, Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore, Md.): Healthcare is a diverse operation – spanning clinical, operational, and administrative, and KPIs are always specific to the value proposition of the area of deployment. That said, healthcare is still today a very human discipline, and it is littered with fantastic technology that never made a difference because of lack of engagement and utilization by the intended end users.
That utilization is often not because the technology wasn’t “good” at addressing the defined problem – rather it wasn’t built to navigate complex workflow change management that comes with adjusting how we care for humans in their most vulnerable moments. This change management, workflow integration, and subsequent technology adoption is where many products fail – so to try to narrow down to one metric: utilization and adoption. If a product makes a job easier, it will be used, and that is the first barrier to unlocking other areas of value.
Eric Smith. Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston, Tx.): Engagement rate is the metric we watch most closely. It tells us whether our digital investments are actually being used in meaningful ways. We look at response rates to digital messages, completion of voice bot interactions, and ongoing patient portal engagement to understand whether these tools are meeting patients where they are and supporting how they want to interact with us.
On the workforce side, we track engagement across our digital tools and AI capabilities to ensure they are being adopted at the front line and helping teams work more effectively. When engagement is strong, it’s a clear signal that the technology is influencing real behavior, not just existing on a roadmap.
Bob Berbeco. Chief Information Officer, Mahaska Health (Oskaloosa, Ia): I watch time-per-unit improvement from the current state to the future state as this is a strong signal that the workflow is truly changing at the front line, not just that a tool was turned on. Our Informaticists lead and shepherd these initiatives end-to-end, working alongside clinical and provider teams to drive adoption through rollout, education, workflow redesign, and ongoing optimization, while maintaining direct line-of-sight to outcomes.
As the work is implemented, we translate the measurable change into value using a “blue dollar” methodology (time saved, rework/errors avoided, and capacity created) and clearly distinguish that from “green dollars” (hard savings or incremental revenue). We then converge the results into a scorecard that summarizes hours returned, blue-dollar value, any green-dollar savings, and an ROI view that weighs realized value against the cost of the initiative. This creates transparency for our leaders on what changed, what it produced, and how that evidence should inform future investment decisions.
Nadine Simmons-Ziegler. Vice President of Perioperative Services, South Shore University Hospital, Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.): At SSUH and across the Northwell Health system, we look closely at OR utilization, block time optimization, patients and surgeon satisfaction, along with team collaboration, because these drive both efficiency and the patient experience.
When we see improved throughput, fewer delays, and strong engagement with digital tools, it reflects a culture that embraces technology to deliver better care at the front line.
Rajiv Pramanik, MD. Chief Information Officer and Chief Health Informatics Officer, Contra Costa Health (Martinez, Ca.): We are primarily focused on task completion speed, adherence to timelines, addressing threats, and ultimately, customer satisfaction scores.
Karen Walker. Enterprise Director of Cardiovascular Services, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare (San Jose, Ca.): The metric I watch most closely is workflow adoption by the users at the point of care. I measure thepercent of eligible encounters where the tool is actually used in the intended step of the workflow.
The usage counts and logins can look strong however, the behavior could stay unchanged. For example, I focus on the following:
Order sets used when criteria are met, decision support accepted when appropriate, documentation completed in the new pathway. I pair that with time to complete and step-bypass rates to see whether the tool is reducing friction or creating workarounds. The most telling signal is a sustained shift over multiple weeks by unit, role, and shift, not a launch spike.
Variation and drop-off are monitored to identify where adoption is fragile and needs targeted coaching or workflow redesign. Finally, I tie adoption to a downstream operational or clinical proxy like reduced duplicate documentation, faster throughput, fewer denials, or improved measure compliance—so we can distinguish “used” from “used effectively.” If adoption is high but outcomes are flat, it tells me the problem is not the technology; it is workflow fit, training or data quality.
Christopher Horvat, MD. Senior Director of Clinical Informatics, UPMC (Pittsburgh, Pa.): I don’t believe there is a single universal metric that shows whether a digital investment is working. The right metric has to be tailored to the specific clinical workflow and the value the tool is intended to deliver, and it must be defined before implementation. My teams focus most closely on whether the technology improves adherence to evidence-based clinical processes at the point of care, alongside at least one patient-centered outcome that reflects meaningful impact on care. If a tool is broadly deployed but fails to improve both process reliability and patient-relevant outcomes, then it hasn’t truly changed frontline behavior.
Chandu Vemuri. Chief Medical Officer, University of Michigan Health Sparrow (Lansing, Mi.): The leading metric for digital product investments is most often utilization. However, utilization doesn’t translate to impact for most digital products/services. From my perspective, the most important metric is if the product delivers the intended effect. For an investment to be worthwhile, there must be a clear effect that aligns with current/future priorities and can be tracked in real-time. Therefore, as the digital product/service is deployed to the front-line, the key is to assess if the behavioral impact is intended and the resultant effects are incrementally making progress to the goal.
Matt Morton. Assistant Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, University of Chicago Medicine (Chicago, Il.): The metric I watch most closely is CrowdStrike indents. It’s the best indicator of whether our digital tools are actually being used effectively at the front line and driving the intended behavior change. We also monitor Extrahop for network anomalies to get a clearer picture of the impact and adjust our strategy as needed.
Dawson Ballard Jr. Coding Auditor and Educator, Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, Il.): For me, I look at workflow adoption and utilization rates. This measures how consistently staff are using the new tools within their daily processes. If adoption is high and sustained, it signals that the technology is integrated into routine care rather than being bypassed.
A couple of examples would be:
• Time-to-task completion: Are clinicians completing documentation or order entry faster after implementation?
• Error reduction or compliance improvement: For example, fewer coding errors or better adherence to clinical protocols.
Nick Yerkan. Program Director, Canning Thoracic Institute, Northwestern Medicine (Chicago, Il.): Within our service line model, we’re putting a lot of effort into marketing new programs that are designed for optimal and efficient patient care. To that end, we’re tracking engagement from these marketing efforts – clicks, phone calls, inquiries, and ultimately, appointments scheduled.
Christophe Le Renard, MD. Chief Medical Information Officer, Cottage Health (Santa Barbara, Ca.): It depends on the application, but I still learn the most from our basic usage data. It is great to hear from my users why they like an application and what they are getting out of it. But I learn the most from those users who are not leveraging the application. These people can tell me where we missed and how we could do better.
Paola Ballester, MD. Medical Director of Utilization Management, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital (St. Petersburg, Fa.): First-pass success is the most honest signal of whether digital investments are truly changing behavior at the front line.
When requests, authorizations, or claims are submitted correctly the first time, it reflects better upstream decision-making, cleaner documentation, and workflows that support staff at the point of work.
Health systems continue to track lagging indicators like days in A/R, but first-pass success exposes the operational reality driving denials, rework, and staff burnout. As Becker’s has consistently highlighted, RCM modernization is shifting from reactive denial management to proactive, data-driven prevention. First-pass performance is where that shift becomes visible. This topic resonates with executives because it directly links frontline behavior to access, cash flow, and workforce sustainability at a moment when health systems are being asked to do more with fewer resources. It’s being proactive, rather than reactive.
Pradeep Singanallur. Vice President and Enterprise Chief Medical Officer, Centra (Lynchburg, Va.): The metric I most closely watch is the percentage of cases where documentation and status decisions are corrected before, or immediately after discharge, not after the bills drops. When clinicians change course in real time, it tells me that the digital investment is supporting timely clinical communication, not just retrospective cleanup, and correction for future encounters. I also look for a shortening of the query to action interval and decline in post discharge rework handled by physician advisors. If these move together, it is evidence that the frontline workflow has truly changed, not just the backend numbers.
Thomas Maddox, MD. Vice President of Digital Products and Innovation, BJC HealthCare and Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, Mo.): BJC Health and WashU Medicine have made a major investment in AI-supported ambient documentation for our clinicians in 2026. An early indicator of success will be uptake of this tool in their daily practice. In initial testing, we’ve seen that once clinicians try the tool, they rapidly incorporate it into their workflow and report significant improvements in cognitive burden, time spent charting, and overall job satisfaction.
Greg Thompson. Chief Information Security Officer, VHC Health (Arlington, Va.): I focus on how often security controls are used correctly without generating workarounds. Metrics like MFA success rates in clinical and operational contexts and reduced exception requests tell me whether our digital investments are aligning with how clinicians actually work, rather than forcing them to bypass controls.
Alexander Levit, MD. Medical Director of Hospital at Home, Lee Health System (Fort Myers, Fa.): As the medical director for our Hospital at Home program, digital investments are frequent, often novel, and subject to quick feedback. While we have grown beyond the start-up phase and into the “scaling” phase, we remain a closely knit group of physicians, nurses, and staff. On the subjective end, a positive sign of uptake is when our staff defaults to the framework of the digital investment without top-down urging. For example, we created an electronic physician scheduling model tailored to our unique Hospital at Home use case. Our nursing and operations staff now speak in the language of this model when scheduling needs arise. Analogously, treating all of Hospital at Home as one digital investment, we can judge the success of our entire service line through the rate of self-initiated patient referrals by physicians.
Salim Saiyed, MD. Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin (Austin, Tx.): The metric I monitor most closely is adoption and utilization of digital tools at the point of care, such as EHR workflows, clinical decision support, and patient engagement platforms. High adoption and satisfaction rates indicate that investments are influencing frontline behavior. I also track value realization metrics, including improvements in quality of care outcomes, clinician efficiency and satisfaction, and patient experience scores. These measures together show whether digital initiatives are not only implemented but are driving meaningful change aligned with our learning academic health system’s mission at The University of Texas Medical Center.
Alex Carter. Director of Transformation, Ochsner Health (New Orleans, La.): My preface is this: the metrics that I follow are dependent on many things, but primarily the context and the timing. A clinical decision support tool’s desired outcome is vastly different than a rev cycle tool’s desired outcomes, and the specific metrics follow intent. The intended audience (providers, administrators, patients, etc.) dictates the definition of success in a significant way. Lastly, metrics also vary between new implementations and mature products or platforms.
Assuming a digital health tool is clinical and healthcare workers are the intended audience, I am watching utilization rates for a reliable increase and sustained usage. The specifics of any tool are null if adoption and ongoing utilization isn’t occurring. From a purely pragmatic perspective, all success is predicated on the foundational behavior change of adopting a new tool or workflow, and this is a strong early surrogate for success. The clinical behavior change intended for the tool to affect is going to be a secondary metric until a threshold of adoption and sustained usage is met.
Paul LePage. Vice President of Revenue Cycle, UC Davis Health (Sacramento, Ca.): The metric I watch most closely is first-pass yield (clean claim rate), segmented by the workflows the digital investment is meant to impact. Sustained improvement here indicates that front-line behaviors: registration, eligibility, authorization, and coding are truly changing, not just tool adoption. I pair this with charge lag to confirm documentation and charge capture are happening accurately and timely at the point of care. When improvements in first-pass yield and charge lag are accompanied by reductions in denial root causes and DNFB days, I have confidence the technology is driving real behavioral change rather than surface-level efficiency.
Charleen Singh, PhD. Program Director, DNP-FNP Program, University of California, Davis Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing (Berkeley, Ca.): There are several metrics that you can monitor for impact at the front line. The metrics can be at a high level or the metrics can be more specific or detailed. There are also several different points within the cycle of health care that the metrics can be evaluated for exam Leap Frog is retrospective but provides rich information however the metric is at a macro level, automated daily chart audits is another metric. The important element is identifying the metric you want to follow to give you information on the front line input of interest.
Manny Rodriguez. Chief Marketing, Experience and Customer Officer, UCHealth (Aurora, Co.): An intuitive and efficient pre-appointment digital experience is critical to changing behavior at the front line. Specifically, if a patient checks in for their appointment through our app, our goal is to make that experience complete such that all of the details are taken care of, and their in-person experience becomes frictionless. This “check-in” metric is also a great indicator of pre-appointment patient engagement and understanding. It’s the best measure of both investment and where we place our attention to continually improve.
Having a seamless digital experience when you need us, is just as important as providing digital tools to use so you don’t need us as often. We’ve built a holistic health platform with interactive features, resources, challenges and rewards to help our patients thrive in body, mind, and spirit. Whether you’re trying to drink more water, improve your sleep, or eat less fast food, we’ve gamified it for you to keep you on track, and if you want, share it with your provider.
At the end of the day, the signal we trust most is whether our digital work is making care feel easier, more intuitive and more human for the people we serve.
Amber Imboden. Director of Revenue Integrity, Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore, Md.): In Revenue integrity, we make sure that one metric we watch closely is charge capture timeliness and completeness at the point of service, trended before and after an intervention. Depending on whether we are looking at a whole service line, department or specific provider, we slice the data down to that specific data line. This helps monitor effectiveness of the investment as well as if we should expand or decrease the investment.
JohnRich Levine, DNP. Chief Nursing Officer, Reeves Regional Health (Breckenridge, Tx.): When we roll out a digital tool, I pay attention to what happens during a real shift. For example, when I see a nurse open the standardized order set without hesitation, document in the new template because it flows smoothly, and complete the discharge using the checklist because it saves time, that moment signals to me a behavior change.
Also, when I notice staff creating workarounds, pausing to figure things out, or adding extra steps, it tells me friction exists. And then of course, the strongest signal comes to me when the technology fades into the background, and the team stays focused on patients.
These are great signs that the technology we invest in is changing our behaviors at the point of care.
Conrad Gleber, MD. Associate Chief Medical Information Officer, University of Rochester Medical Center (Rochester, N.Y.): Overall, we adopt a simplified version of a Digital Maturity Index (DMI) to answer this question by focusing on Engagement and Experience.
For specific projects, we typically target percent action taken to monitor engagement and adoption. It helps us understand if the new technology is being used. The following are a couple examples:
- For a tap-to-login technology, what percentage of logins are by typing a password versus using the technology.
- For ambient documentation, what percentage of notes signed contain ambiently transcribed text.
For a broad baseline for experience, we survey our users slowly throughout the year. We send a survey to 1/365th of all users every day, without repeats until the following year. This means we get reach everyone over the course of a year. Within this survey, we target this with a question, “On a scale of 0 to 10, please rate your level of comfort with the technology you use to do your job.” If we see the average number rise, the collective investments are helping our users and affecting behaviors, in our opinion.
David Spence. Director of IT/HIM, Mile Bluff Medical Center (Mauston, Wi.): This is a great question. I feel that this answer will continue to transmute and be fluid, depending on the digital tools and resources being implemented and the strategic goals of the organization at the time.
Currently I am more focused on the evidence that technology is not just being used—it’s improving care at the front line. Using data from regulatory reports to track critical improvements and success rates, reviewing Press Ganey survey results to understand patient satisfaction and care trends, and tracking deficiency numbers to see significant boosts in clinical documentation completion are just a few ways we do this. I feel that there have been so many implementations in the medical field that negatively impact real patient/provider time, any way we can help reduce this burden and allow our patients to become the focus is a huge win. That is where the real return on investment lives.
Nariman Heshmati, MD. Chief Physician and Operations Executive, Physician Group, Lee Health (Fort Myers, Fa.): This is entirely dependent on the digital investment. If I am evaluating an AI scribe, I look at time in the EMR charting. If I am looking at digital technology that pushes quality data to my physicians, I am looking for improvement in those data sets. If I am rolling out something to make patient self-scheduling easier, I am looking at self-scheduling rates. The important thing here is that before I invest in digital technology, I know what problem I am trying to solve and what metric I am going to use to gauge success. The problem I think many companies face is they don’t start with identifying the problem but rather with finding a cool new digital solution and looking for where they can implement it.
Joshua Rivera, MBA. Pathology Business Operations Director, Moffitt Cancer Center (Tampa, Fa.): The metric we watch most closely in my area is Turnaround Time (TAT) for pathology diagnoses. This is a critical indicator of whether digital investments are improving efficiency and reducing delays in patient care. Shorter TAT demonstrates that technology is streamlining workflows, enabling faster diagnostic reporting, and ultimately supporting timely clinical decision-making. We also monitor consistency across cases through a systematic business intelligence approach to ensure improvements are sustained and scalable.
Mohammed Abdelaziz, MD. Hospital Medicine Medical Director, Mercy Health, Kings Mills Hospital (Kings Mills, Oh.): There is no single universal metric that applies to every digital investment, as each tool is designed to influence behavior in different ways. While I rely on traditional outcome and adoption data, the metric I watch most closely is what I call the “people pulse”—the real-time feedback I gather by being present with frontline clinicians, listening to their pain points, and understanding what actually makes their work easier or harder. In my role, staying embedded with the teams delivering care allows me to validate whether digital investments are translating into meaningful behavioral change, not just dashboard improvements.
Artimisha Curl, MAED. Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, El Camino Health (Mountain View, Ca.): The metric I watch most closely is sustained behavior adoption rather than simple utilization. I look for leading indicators such as consistent engagement trends, workflow integration, and frontline feedback, paired with lagging outcomes like retention, engagement scores, and patient experience measures. When digital investments are truly effective, they reduce friction, build confidence, and show up in how work is done, not just how often a tool is accessed. When technology drives clarity, connection, and trust at the front line, the data consistently reflects that impact.
Srinath Adusumalli, MD. Vice President and Chief Health Information Officer, University of Pennsylvania Health System (Philadelphia, Pa.): The set of metrics I watch closely (although certainly have imperfections) are our EHR use data, specifically looking at metrics such as time in our EHR system outside of scheduled hours. For Penn Medicine to be the most clinician-friendly health system in the country, our digital investments, like ambient AI and improvements in patient-clinician messaging mechanisms, must return time to our clinicians’ personal lives. If we see a downward trend in frontline behaviors like evening EHR activity, we know our technology is finally working for the clinician, rather than the other way around.
Mitchell Kentor, MD. Program Director of Ambulatory Navigation Center and Immediate Care Physician, Endeavor Health (San Antonio, Tx.): Endeavor Health’s Ambulatory Navigation Center, whose early strategic priorities include medication refills/prior authorizations and primary care clinical triage teams, closely monitors turnaround time (TAT). A decreasing TAT indicates that our team members are effectively utilizing our automation and AI tools, leading to faster medication refills, prior authorizations, and clinical triage. This directly benefits patients by ensuring timely access to medications and care. Looking ahead, we plan to prioritize first contact resolution as a key metric. This reflects our goal of resolving patient needs during their initial interaction, leading to a more seamless and efficient experience.
Neda Khan, MBA, MHCI. Director of Digital Experience, Mount Sinai Health System (New York, N.Y.): The metric I watch most closely to measure behavior change at the front line is adoption rate, specifically, the percentage of employees actively using the digital tools in their daily workflow without prompting. Technology only changes behavior when it becomes routine, so I track engagement: Are nurses actually documenting vitals through the mobile device at bedside? Are physicians consistently placing orders through the digital system rather than calling them in? If adoption plateaus below 70-80%, the tool isn’t solving a real problem, which is why I also monitor time-to-completion metrics for critical tasks like medication administration or patient handoffs. These operational metrics reveal whether the technology is actually streamlining care delivery.
Priti Patel, MD. Chief Medical Informatics Officer, John Muir Health (Walnut Creek, Ca.): The metric I find most meaningful is end-user satisfaction. If physicians and nurses are satisfied with their digital toolset, I know that additional benefits will follow. Satisfaction with the tools indicates our clinicians are receiving the support they need and are able to provide the kind of care they want to deliver. They can find what they need, when they need it, and with AI, their ability to provide the best possible care is augmented. Clinician satisfaction with the toolset translates into improved care, higher quality, and more meaningful patient interactions.
In a survey recently administered to all providers and nurses across our health system, 83% of providers and 82% of nurses reported that our EHR improved their clinical effectiveness. We are also working to measure patient satisfaction with providers’ use of digital tools, with the ultimate goal of improving the patient experience and care. On the same survey, 49% of providers reported that patients had commented positively on the use of an AI scribe.
Alisa Smith, MPH. Division Director of Process Improvement, Methodist Healthcare System (Memphis, Tn.): Metrics: Rate of Adoption and Readiness for Change
Readiness: As healthcare leverages AI to decrease the cognitive load of care teams, physicians and frontline staff, it is important to first assess the readiness of the ecosystem before adopting a new scope of work. When there is an imbalance between implementing automation and staff’s readiness for change, the rate of adoption is slowed; leading staff to continue inefficient, standard work procedures.
Adoption: To advance staff’s adoption of new digital solutions, we must first implement psychology of change models. This will enhance staff comfort during the transition to the new environment and will eliminate system work arounds. Two key metrics that signal adoption resistance are low system utilization and lagged improvement rates.
Kathleen Moriarty. Senior Director of Case Management, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (Chicago, Il.): Let’s talk about success before we dive into the details. Overturning payer denials should be celebrated, especially those high dollar claims that may have several reason codes. For me, I track the number of open denials keeping in mind this metric reflects how well we prevent them, but also how we resolve them.
Jaspreet Sharma. Director of Telemetry, Good Samaritan Hospital (Cincinnati, Oh.): The metric I pay the closest attention to is how frontline staff behave when they encounter something suspicious especially when no one is watching. I look at things like how fast phishing gets reported, how relevant those reports are, and whether risky behavior starts to decline over time. In healthcare, people are juggling patient care, time pressure, and constant interruptions. If security only works when people slow down and think hard, it’s not realistic. For me, success isn’t a perfect dashboard or fewer alerts. It’s seeing security show up in everyday decisions on the front line. When that happens consistently, I know our investments are actually changing behavior in a meaningful way.
Natasha Beyde. Assistant Administrator of Radiology, Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx, N.Y.): I closely monitor utilization of Epic Secure Chat, particularly around communication for patient preparation for imaging. Consistent use shows that digital tools are truly changing frontline behavior. Secure Chat enables real-time communication between radiology teams and ordering providers, helping ensure patients are properly prepared, reducing delays, repeat exams, and workflow disruptions. When frontline staff rely on it as part of their daily workflow, it directly improves efficiency, safety and patient care coordination.
Pete D’Addio, CHCIO, CDH-E. Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Technology, LCMC Health (New Orleans, La.): I focus most closely on successful adoption within frontline workflows, meaning that the tool/platform is consistently used end-to-end to perform the work it was designed to change. True success can be measured when digital processes replace old habits rather than running in parallel with them. When adoption is strong, efficiency improves and workarounds disappear. The ultimate test is simple: if we turned the tool off, would frontline teams immediately feel operational pain?
Jody Hinton. Vice President of Medical Revenue Operations, PDS Health (Atlanta, Ga.): Are claims flowing through without human touch? The key metric is our touchless claim rate. How often a provider’s documentation turns into a clean, first-pass claim with no back-office edits. When that number rises alongside fewer denials and faster charge posting, it tells us frontline teams are truly using the digital tools we’ve invested in.
Ilham Atir, MBA, MLS (ASCP)CM. Director of Clinical Laboratory Services, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center (Paramus, N.J.): To maximize the ROI of our digital transformation, we must prioritize the systematic reduction of process variance across our diagnostic workflows. Authentic behavioral change occurs only when technology eliminates the manual workarounds that historically compromise our efficiency and standardization. By quantifying the delta between manual intervention and automated throughput, we can pinpoint exactly when our investments stabilize quality and expand clinical capacity. A measurable decline in procedural deviations serves as the definitive KPI that our digital infrastructure is fully integrated. Ultimately, this shift confirms that technology has transitioned from a novelty into the core driver of our operational excellence.
Sarah Rush, MD. Vice President of Medical Informatics, Akron Children’s (Akron, Oh.): We look at clinician adoption and workflow impact. The most telling metric is how consistently clinical teams use the tools as part of their normal process—whether that’s ambient documentation, virtual nursing workflows, or AI-assisted tasks. Sustained utilization paired with measurable efficiency gains, like reduced documentation time or decreased after-hours system use, are the clearest signals that digital investments are truly changing behavior.
Kelly McCabe. Director of Community Health Interventions and Research, Sinai Chicago (Chicago, Il.): At Sinai Chicago, we monitor several key metrics to evaluate the impact of our digital initiatives on frontline care. This includes tracking patient readmissions, adherence to follow-up appointments, and the resources we provide to patients. In partnership with academic collaborators, we’re working to refine predictive models for emergency department readmission rates. Additionally, we’re focusing on improving risk stratification and optimizing resource allocation within our system to achieve better patient outcomes. Our team of Community Health Workers plays a crucial role in delivering personalized and equitable care, and they are seamlessly integrated into our health system to enhance patient outcomes.
Erika Putinsky, Vice President of Brand Strategy and Digital Marketing at Emory Healthcare (Atlanta): The metric I watch most closely is meaningful patient completion, especially across different populations. It’s not enough to see engagement alone; we focus on whether patients are actually able to complete the intended action and whether that holds true across demographics and access barriers. We pair quantitative signals like completion and abandonment rates with patient experience insights to understand where digital tools are reducing friction versus unintentionally creating it. When adoption is consistent and outcomes improve across diverse groups, we know the investment is truly changing behavior.
