Allie Woldenberg

It’s a directive that hospitals and health systems of every size know well — whether sprawling academic medical centers, multistate nonprofit systems or rural, independent 25-bed hospitals.

While the phrase isn’t new, the urgency behind it is intensifying. The nation’s healthcare workforce remains fragile, forcing leaders to distinguish between staffing gaps that are temporary hurdles or structural limitations. Revenue projections for health systems have shifted dramatically — even within the last six months — as federal spending plans tighten, particularly around Medicaid. Funding for clinical research, once considered a durable pillar of U.S. healthcare post-World War II, is also undergoing one of its most significant shakeups, underscoring a stark reality: Even the most established sources of support are no longer guaranteed.

Against this backdrop, Becker’s set out to understand how health system leaders across the U.S. are interpreting and enacting the mandate to “do more with less” today. From June 9 to July 15, we spoke with executives across the country, in every type of market, hospital, and health system, to hear how they are navigating this evolving landscape.

Becker’s reached out to 51 health systems in 50 states and Washington, D.C., to find out one specific way each of them has redesigned a process or care model in the past year to serve more patients — without adding staff. The leaders span Alabama to Wyoming, from clinical to IT to finance to human resources to operations.

Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. Other health systems or hospitals are welcome to share their own approaches — we’ll continue adding responses to this piece as they come in. Please send responses to Mariah Taylor at m.taylor@beckershealthcare.com.

Jump to state: Alabama | Alaska | Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Delaware | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Louisiana | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | Rhode Island | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | Washington, D.C. | West Virginia | Wisconsin | Wyoming

Alabama 

Kerry Tolleson. CFO at Infirmary Health (Mobile)

As the largest nongovernmental healthcare system in Alabama, Infirmary Health remains focused on delivering high-quality care while adapting to financial pressures. Rising costs and stagnant reimbursement rates have made inpatient care especially challenging, requiring smarter, leaner models to sustain excellence.

To meet this challenge, Infirmary Health redesigned its clinical documentation integrity process without adding staff. Rather than expanding headcount, Infirmary Health overhauled how the CDI team operates, leveraging automation and intelligent chart prioritization to ensure specialists focus only on the records that require clinical attention. This redesign enables full daily review of inpatient records, expands CDI support across additional service lines, and incorporates the program into Infirmary Health’s Internal Medicine Residency as a core educational component.This transformation has strengthened both clinical and financial performance, delivering a 10-to-1 return on investment and demonstrating that meaningful care model improvements can be achieved through smarter processes, not just increased staffing.

Alaska

Mikal Canfield. Senior Manager of External Communications at Providence Alaska (Anchorage):

Providence Alaska Medical Center’s Daily Device Review Initiative, launched in January 2025, targets the prevention of two prevalent hospital-acquired infections: catheter-associated urinary tract infections and central line-associated bloodstream infections. 

These infections are linked to medical devices, such as Foley catheters and central lines, which bypass natural body defenses, thereby increasing infection risk. The industry experiences CAUTI rates between 1.68 and 3.3 infections per 1,000 catheter days, influenced by various factors such as hospital patient population and location. U.S. hospitals report around 250,000 CLABSIs annually, with intensive care units accounting for approximately 80,000 of these cases. 

Recognizing the best preventive measure is eliminating unnecessary catheter and central line use, PAMC initiated thorough daily assessments of all hospital patients with these devices. Meticulous evaluations of 31 central lines and 26 Foley catheters per day on average have drastically reduced infection rates. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, this initiative resulted in the removal of 102 central lines and 200 Foley catheters with physician approval, as they no longer met evidence-based placement criteria. 

As a result, CAUTI rates fell 36% below the U.S. average and 25% below PAMC’s previous year figures, while CLABSI rates were 42% lower than the national mean and 60% lower than PAMC’s Q1 2024 statistics, including more than three months without a single CAUTI and nearly six months without a CLABSI in the intensive care unit at the hospital.

There is also a correlation between these infections and the need for additional treatment time in a hospital level of care. According to the National Institutes of Health, an average of two additional days in the hospital can be needed with these conditions. By working to reduce variability in clinical practice and assuring high quality of care for our patients, PAMC is increasing the availability of beds allowing the hospital to serve more patients and reducing wait times for new patients waiting to be admitted

Arizona Staci Dickerson. Executive Vice President and CFO at Banner Health (Phoenix):In healthcare, we think of clinical time as a perishable resource. If we don’t fill it, we lose it forever. That’s why we began rethinking our scheduling model post-COVID, leveraging technology to automate and insert intuitive thinking. Today, AI has made it even more efficient to meet patients where they are, identifying optimal time slots based on demand surges and available resources. We have tested the use of support agents to complete scheduling tasks with greater ease and accuracy. For example, in imaging, we have an automated waitlist that helps fill cancellations quickly, ensuring timely access to care and no waste of unused appointments. We’re using AI agents specifically trained for this purpose. Our physician practices, enterprise call center and IT leaders worked together to build this, opening access to thousands of additional appointment time slots in the communities we serve.

ArkansasLaura Wood. Program Administrator of UAMS Health Northwest Regional Campus (Fayetteville):Over the past year, UAMS Northwest redesigned our care model in northwest Arkansas by expanding access through the introduction of a midwifery clinic and the promotion of same-day access within our family medical centers. By leveraging existing infrastructure and collaborative care workflows, we were able to integrate certified nurse midwives into our care team and enhance women’s health services without increasing overall staffing levels. At the same time, we streamlined scheduling and triage processes to offer more same-day appointments, increasing capacity and improving responsiveness to patient needs. These changes allowed us to serve more patients efficiently and provide more comprehensive, accessible care to our community.

CaliforniaPatrick Rohan. CEO of Good Samaritan Hospital (San Jose): At Good Samaritan Hospital, our care assurance navigation team has expanded its reach without adding staff by implementing cross-coverage across hospitals within our system. By licensing nurses in multiple states, we’ve ensured patients with high-risk findings receive timely post-discharge care, regardless of location. This approach allows us to serve more patients efficiently while maintaining quality and continuity of care.

Colorado Daniel Kortsch, MD. Associate Chief of AI and Digital Health at Denver Health: One significant way Denver Health redesigned care delivery this past year to serve more patients without adding staff was through the implementation of an AI-enabled ambient solution. [The solution] captures patient-provider interactions in real-time, automatically generating accurate clinical notes with direct integration into Epic, our electronic health record. This innovative approach has dramatically reduced the documentation burden on our physicians, enabling them to spend more meaningful time focused on patient interactions rather than on manual note-taking. Since implementing [the solution], we’ve observed measurable improvements in provider efficiency, a meaningful reduction in provider burnout, and an increase in patient satisfaction. Physicians have reported more eye contact and a reduced cognitive burden during patient encounters, strengthening the overall quality of care and patient experience. At Denver Health, artificial intelligence helps our physicians reclaim face-to-face care time. [This] successful integration has allowed our clinical teams to expand their capacity to serve more patients effectively without the need for additional staffing resources.

Connecticut Gail Kosyla. CFO at Yale New Haven Health: The patient arrival function is a critical role that directly impacts both the patient experience and revenue stream. During the pandemic, all industries responded to the need for contactless interactions in creative ways. Self-service tools were in use, but underutilized. At the same time, we were challenged with staff turnover and recruitment, especially in patient-facing roles. Post-pandemic we were forced to redesign processes to achieve cost reductions, while still maintaining patient engagement. One example for Yale New Haven Health was the redesign of the patient arrival process. We used a combination of self-service technology, workflow redesign and virtual solutions to achieve our goal of completing critical patient arrival requirements with less staff.  

Yale New Haven Health implemented a touch screen in the reception area that allows staff from a central pool of resources located virtually to assist the patient when needed. This solution is extremely cost-effective for providing coverage nights, weekends and at lower volume locations. We collect feedback from patients to see how they feel about the use of this technology. Overall, patients are comfortable with using self-service tools and they have positive comments on the virtual, live experience. Feedback has helped us to refine the process. For instance, the kiosk needed to be located in a way that maintained patient privacy and, when staff is present, verbal greeting and eye contact remains important to our patients.

At Yale New Haven Health, adoption of self-service tools and implementing innovative ways to reduce the dependency on staffing patient reception areas resulted in a 20% reduction in budgeted expenses related to front desk staffing while maintaining a positive patient experience.

DelawareRon Belfont. Interim Vice President and CIO of Bayhealth (Dover):In the past year, Bayhealth implemented a patient discharge lounge to enhance patient throughput without adding staff. This initiative, led by Bayhealth’s vice president of patient care services, Christine Keithly, DNP, RN, and Bayhealth’s director of patient flow and capacity, Staci Manning, BSN, RN, addresses a common bottleneck in healthcare systems: delayed discharges. By transitioning patients ready for discharge to a dedicated lounge, we free up hospital beds more quickly, allowing incoming patients to be admitted without delay.

Within our Epic system, the nursing team tracks patients in the discharge lounge using a uniquely identified bed designation. This streamlined process ensures efficient bed turnover and maintains clear patient tracking. We see opportunities to further enhance this workflow with targeted Epic builds to better indicate a patient’s status in the discharge lounge.

This initiative demonstrates Bayhealth’s commitment to creative, patient-centered solutions that optimize resources and improve care delivery under constrained conditions.

FloridaWilliam Carracino, MD. Vice President and Chief Digital Health Executive at Lee Health (Fort Myers): Lee Health has adopted AI-powered scribe technology across the health system to assist physicians in documenting patient visits in real time. This innovation enhances the patient experience by allowing providers to focus more on meaningful interactions, reducing administrative burden and helping create additional access for care.

Georgia 

Scott Steiner. President and CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System (Albany):

We launched an intensive outpatient care program, setting aside space in one of our urgent care clinics and staffing it with two advanced practice providers, a nurse and a care coordinator. The clinic exclusively cares for patients with one of four chronic conditions that often result in ER visits and hospitalizations: congestive heart failure, COPD, diabetes and hypertension. We’ve had amazing success at helping these patients manage their conditions, avoid hospital stays and dramatically improve their health. It’s great for our community and our health system.

Hawaii

Ed Chan, MHA, RD. President of Hawaii Market, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals (Honolulu):

Kaiser Permanente Hawaii continues to find innovative ways to enhance the care experience for our members while supporting our dedicated care teams. One example is our Mom and Newborn Center on Maui, which improves access to postpartum care by offering a combined appointment for mothers and their newborns, reducing the need for multiple visits while strengthening continuity of care for both.

At the same time, we’re investing in Hawaii’s future healthcare workforce through initiatives like career exploration days, internships, fellowships and residency programs. These efforts help build a pipeline of local talent and ensure our communities have access to high-quality care now and in the years to come.

Idaho

Amy Geyer, PhD. Chief of Physics at St. Luke’s Health System (Boise):  

St. Luke’s Health System has adopted an AI-driven tool that’s transforming radiation oncology workflows at St. Luke’s Cancer Institute.

[The tool] automates the labor-intensive process of medical contouring — outlining organs and tissues on scans to guide precise radiation therapy. Traditionally a time-consuming task, this AI solution now saves dosimetrists approximately 60 hours per week, allowing more time for patient care and critical planning.

Illinois

Drew Early. Senior Vice President and COO of Memorial Health (Springfield): Earlier this year, a nurse assigned to light duty began going through patient charts and sending reminders to general surgery and gastroenterology patients who were due for a colonoscopy. Those clinics did not have sufficient resources to contact the patients and schedule the procedures.

Our clinical team invests countless hours to ensure each radiation therapy plan is both safe and precise. [This AI-powered solution] helps us maintain that standard while significantly improving efficiency.

During the nurse’s four weeks on light duty, she scheduled more than 200 additional screening colonoscopies at Decatur Memorial Hospital, generating $526,400 in revenue while also ensuring these patients were up to date on this essential screening.Indiana Chris Weaver, MD. Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of Indiana University Health (Indianapolis): IU Health has undertaken several efforts to serve more patients, including developing a process to facilitate effective consults with specialists that allow patients to receive care close to home instead of being transferred to a facility that may or may not be close to where they live. Across the country, tertiary care hospitals are consumed caring for local patients while also receiving patients who transfer in for specialized care. There are times when a transfer is not required, and the patient can stay in their local community to receive excellent local care facilitated by a specialist via an interprofessional consultation. We have established a process to facilitate and document these consultations for reimbursement in order to further support the specialist staffing while allowing patients to stay close to home.

IowaBrett Taylor. Chief Technology Officer of UnityPoint Health (West Des Moines): Technology continues to be a game changer for our bedside teams at UnityPoint Health. Over the last 18 months, we have expanded our virtual nursing program to 12 hospitals and more than three dozen inpatient units across our organization. We have been able to accomplish this with telehealth carts that we build ourselves. We have also started integrating virtual nursing along with patient and care team information and patient education into the existing in-room entertainment system in some of our med-surg units. This will help us to further expand virtual nursing to see more patients and care for more people without adding staff.Our virtual nurses assist our bedside teams with admission and discharge processes, assessments, care plans, and patient and family education. This allows our bedside teams to focus more on what they do best, providing more personalized care to our patients

Kansas 

Amy Kincade, BSN, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer. Salena Gillam, BSN, RN. Vice President and Assistant Chief Nursing Officer at Stormont Vail Health (Topeka):

Stormont Vail Health created a transitional care unit to support up to eight medically stable patients who are ready for discharge but lack a secure discharge plan. These patients may be waiting on insurance approvals or IV antibiotic arrangements, or face barriers related to housing or finances. In the TCU, standard hospital monitoring is discontinued, but patients continue to receive care from nurses and patient care technicians. This unit added two beds to the health system and helps free up space on medical-surgical floors. As a result, we can more efficiently admit patients from the emergency department or postoperative recovery.

Jill White, BSN, RN, Chief Nursing Officer and Lori Hartnett, Vice President of Operations at Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System:

At Hutchinson Regional Healthcare System, we have redesigned our Position Control process to standardize the data that leaders assess when analyzing the need to backfill or create a new position. Data around overtime, volume, staffing mix, etc. are evaluated to help make informed decisions and ensure that when we do add a position, it is necessary. Leaders are also encouraged to identify alternative solutions to staffing beyond adding new positions.

We have found that cross-training team members to work in different areas allows us to work together more as a team to fill gaps. Thinking about staffing collectively allows us to creatively fill open positions. Patient care technicians have been cross-trained to work shifts as phlebotomists, which fills a much-needed care delivery gap, particularly on the third shift. Our imaging department is cross-training team members across different modalities and we have invested in automation lines in the lab that decrease manual steps for team members. ICU nurses are working through our “One Call Admission Center” rather than being sent home during periods of low census. This covers open shifts, reduces overtime, allows ICU nurses to work their scheduled hours and improves team member satisfaction. Patient observers who typically provide remote monitoring to ensure patient safety, have been cross trained with additional responsibilities such as performing crash cart checks, audits, dietary assistance, and sitting one-on-one with patients. This has provided support to nursing, house supervisors, and food and nutrition services while maintaining focus on patient safety.

Kentucky Kim Tharp-Barrie, DNP. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Norton Healthcare (Louisville):We have found new ways to complement workforce needs through technology and innovation. Virtual nursing is being piloted at several locations across our system for patient admissions and discharges. This allows additional time for bedside nurses to provide direct patient care. While technology is a vital part of our plan, it’s coupled with innovation. Norton Healthcare’s Institute for Education and Development has created a joint-appointment model to increase clinical instructors in dedicated education units (DEUs). Faced with a shortage of nursing instructors nationwide, this collaboration with our school of nursing partners creates a more robust and work-ready pipeline.

Louisiana

Tiffany Murdock, PhD, MSN. Chief Nursing Officer at Ochsner Health (New Orleans): 

At Ochsner, we’re incredibly proud of how our virtual nursing program is transforming the way we care for patients. We have reimagined virtual nursing care over the last three years with a centralized focus on admissions and discharges. This innovative approach focuses on the strengths of both bedside and virtual nurses to create a more flexible, efficient and supportive care model — and it’s making a real difference. Our virtual nursing team, made up of experienced nurses with backgrounds ranging from med-surg to critical care, works side by side (virtually!) with our bedside teams to cover 615 beds across 14 hospitals and 19 units. Thanks to this collaboration, we’ve been able to streamline discharges — over 22,500 so far — serving more than 90% of our discharges to home, and we’ve seen a 2% drop in readmissions in participating units. 

One of the best parts? Our bedside nurses are getting more time to focus on patient care. By shifting some of the education and administrative work to our virtual team, we’ve saved around 7,500 bedside hours since we expanded our virtual nursing program in 2024. Patients are noticing the difference too — especially when it comes to discharge and medication education, where satisfaction scores and quality outcomes are increasing. This isn’t just about improving the numbers (though we love that, too!), it’s about making care more connected, more responsive and more fulfilling for everyone involved. With the right mix of technology, teamwork and purpose, we’re giving our nurses the space to do what they love and giving our patients the care they deserve.

Maine

Deborah Sanford, MSN, RN. Vice President and Nursing and Patient Care Services at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center (Bangor): 

In the past year, our organization has focused on several areas to optimize efficiency throughout the system; one in particular: our medical imaging departments to serve more patients without increasing staff. One key area of improvement involved the MRI department, where we successfully identified significant opportunities to reduce turnaround times and streamline patient care, resulting in seeing more patients who are in the hospital. To achieve these improvements, we implemented several strategic changes. 

We introduced enhanced electronic communication systems to enable rapid escalation of obstacles in securing timely patient appointments. MRI safety screening questionnaires were completed before patient transportation, aligning with industry best practices and increasing technologist efficiency. Additionally, we adjusted MRI schedules to prioritize inpatient and emergency department patients, reducing waiting times and accelerating patient movement throughout the care continuum. Our ongoing efforts to integrate discharge planning information into imaging staff’s daily routines further successfully optimized patient prioritization and care. These changes allow us to see more patients in the hospital and reduce our length of stay, therefore opening up overall access. By implementing strategic changes like these, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to delivering timely, high-quality care and improving patient outcomes — all with a focus on doing more, safety, with less.

Maryland

Alda Mizaku. Vice President and Chief Data and AI Officer, Children’s National Hospital (Washington, D.C.):

Over the past year, our organization has made significant strides in improving hospital efficiency through the development of a Throughput Dashboard — a data- and AI-powered solution co-created by our data and AI team in close partnership with clinical operations leaders. This tool provides real-time visibility into patient flow, helping frontline teams proactively identify and address efficiencies in care delivery.

By embedding proactive insights and operational triggers into daily workflows, the dashboard has enabled our hospitals to serve more patients without increasing staff. It’s a powerful example of how thoughtfully designed data products can unlock capacity, reduce delays, and ultimately enhance the patient experience across our system. This allows us to serve more patients and ensures that they can be seen promptly, improving their overall experience. 

Massachusetts

Eric Alper, MD. Vice President and Chief Quality and Clinical Informatics Officer; and Penny Iannelli. Chief Transformation Officer at UMass Memorial Health (Worcester): 

UMass Memorial Health offers a wide range of behavioral health services across our system. Since the onset of COVID-19, we have experienced a significant surge in demand for these services. Previously, referring providers were expected to choose a specific department for each behavioral health referral, without full visibility into key factors such as provider availability, patient location, or site capacity. This led to imbalanced workloads — some departments were overwhelmed, while others had underutilized capacity. To address this, a cross-functional improvement team led by Dr. Amy Harrington, Kimberly McGuigan-Robinson, Greg Mirhej and cross-entity representatives redesigned the referral process by implementing a centralized intake system. The referral order and associated workflows were restructured to support this model. In addition, cross-departmental huddles were established to review referrals together if needed, ensuring that each patient was directed to the most appropriate site based on need and availability. This team continues to meet regularly to optimize the process. As a result of these changes, more patients are receiving timely and appropriate behavioral healthcare.Additionally, to address prolonged boarding times in the Leominster Emergency Department, a cross-functional team launched a focused improvement initiative targeting the transition of admitted adult patients from the ED to inpatient units. A kaizen-style event held in July 2023 catalyzed the redesign of the bed placement process, emphasizing waste reduction, standardization and improved communication. The new workflow, implemented in October 2023 and refined through monthly improvement cycles, prioritized patient-centered care and operational efficiency. As a result, the Leominster ED reduced its median admit decision to patient departure time from 7.9 hours to 3.3 hours by May 2024 — meeting the national benchmark and achieving a 58% improvement.

Michigan

Steve Frazier, RN, ACN-RN. Director of Quality and Patient Safety Post-Acute at MyMichigan Health (Midland):

Improving patient access to care remains a top priority for MyMichigan Health. In late 2024, a dedicated workgroup was established to evaluate scheduling and waitlist management processes for medical appointments in the ambulatory setting. This comprehensive review of practice workflows revealed a lack of standardization in how new patient appointment slots were filled following cancellations or rescheduling. Some practices utilized the electronic medical record to manage waitlists, while others relied on manual methods, such as handwritten notebooks. In both scenarios, front office staff reported challenges in pausing their workflows to contact patients in a timely manner, which could result in unfilled appointment slots or their reallocation for other appointment types — further exacerbating access issues for new patients. To tackle this challenge, the workgroup partnered with our information technology team to roll out [an Epic] feature for new patient appointments. Now, when a new patient is scheduled, they are automatically added to the waitlist in Epic. If their appointment is 15 days or more, and an earlier appointment becomes available, [the solution] sends a real-time notification through, giving the patient the chance to claim the slot — no phone calls or staff intervention needed. The new patient appointment process was initially piloted in our Family Medicine and Internal Medicine practices. Due to its early success, the initiative has recently expanded to additional select specialty locations. The results have been highly encouraging, both in terms of operational efficiency and patient experience.

Over the past seven months, family and internal medicine clinics have sent 31,078 offers for 12,030 available new patient appointment slots. Of those, 2,852 appointments were successfully filled through [the Epic-based solution], yielding a 24% fill rate. More recently, the process was implemented across several specialty practices, including cardiology, urology, gastroenterology, neurology, rheumatology and OB-GYN. Within the last three months, these specialties collectively sent 2,744 offers for 881 new patient appointment slots, with 312 filled via patient acceptance — achieving a 35% success rate. This initiative not only improves patient navigation and reduces delays in care, but it also alleviates administrative burden for staff, contributing to higher satisfaction and better clinic throughput. The success of the new patient appointment process underscores the value of automation in optimizing appointment utilization and advancing access to care across our system.

Minnesota Joshua Shepherd. President at Buffalo Hospital and Cambridge Medical Center:Health systems are being challenged to do more with fewer resources, and for us in rural areas, that pressure is especially acute. We’re meeting it by being intentional — rethinking what must be transferred and what can stay local. We’ve deployed telehospitalists and specialty telehealth programs to support bedside care without needing every specialist on site. This extends the reach of hard to find specialists and lowers our cost. We’ve also implemented tools like Ceribell, an AI platform that helps bring EEG- seizure screening to rural sites. This has significantly reduced the need to transfer patients. It’s about making smart use of technology to extend our reach and enhance our capabilities.We’re also investing in high-value services like cardiac MRI to keep more advanced care close to home and improve patient satisfaction. These aren’t just cost-saving moves — they’re part of a broader strategy to sustain rural healthcare by building smarter, more capable systems that support both clinicians and communities better. Simply doing more with less is not a sustainable strategy, we have to use technology and our talented teams to help us come up with innovative new ways of providing care. Not only the same level of care, but a higher level that is more affordable. 

Melanie Wilson. Interim CFO of Essentia Health (Duluth):

Over the past year, Essentia Health has focused on redesigning our ambulatory access model to serve more patients — without adding staff — by going back to the fundamentals. We undertook a targeted approach to optimize provider scheduling templates, focusing on areas with the greatest opportunity. We focused on removing unnecessary blocks, session limits and holds to ensure that every available clinical hour could be used productively to better serve the patients who entrust us with their care. We also aligned clinician contact hours with expected clinic time to maximize appointment availability and reduce variation across sites.To support these changes, we introduced structured accountability and real-time problem-solving. Daily huddles among clinical, operational and scheduling teams address access barriers as they arise, while weekly leadership report-outs keep performance visible and aligned with goals. We also launched Access GEMBA walks to engage leaders and frontline teams in identifying obstacles and opportunities for improvement directly at the point of care. These disciplined, data-driven practices have allowed us to expand access and improve patient throughput, demonstrating how creativity and operational rigor can deliver results even under tight resource constraints.

MississippiJeremy Tinnerello. Market President of St. Dominic Health (Jackson): As a regional tertiary hospital, we have a responsibility to assist rural Mississippi hospitals in broadening access to care for patients in need of the advanced services we provide. St. Dominic Health developed a predictability tool for bed availability that adjusts in real time, allowing our transfer center to become more proactive in transfer acceptance. This effort has resulted in a 36% improvement in transfer acceptance, providing tertiary levels of care to more than 3,000 additional patients over the course of the year. These results were accomplished with process change and internally built predictability tools that required no additional staff.

MissouriMeagan Weber. CEO of Scotland County Hospital (Memphis): We implemented a walk-in clinic that is open during our clinic hours and our providers work together on getting those patients in during the day. We also use telehealth for services when necessary, available during clinic hours. Walk-in appointments have helped with convenience to our community, and this has really helped increase our commercial patient usage, as it gives working families flexibility to get into a provider. Telehealth services also add flexibility to our providers, as they can see patients quickly and also at patients’ convenience. 

Montana

Sarah Yoder. Director of Marketing and Communications, Benefis Health System (Great Falls):  

Benefis Community Care has integrated a digital communications and collaboration platform into their existing home medical equipment automated resupply program. Allowing customers the ability to communicate their re-supply needs through their individualized preferred channel of communication. These technologies empower customer engagement by reducing manual processes that now are easily handled by the software. Customers can easily place and receive resupply orders using these digital platforms while reducing employee touches. This has given our staff more time to spend with the customers and has also increased our geographical footprint with the convenient drop ship capabilities. Benefis Community Care currently uses this platform combination for their continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) customers, and are working to expand this into other product lines such as ostomy, urology and diabetic supplies.

Nebraska 

Kelly Vaughn, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Officer at Nebraska Medicine (Omaha): 

We often have patients who are medically ready for discharge but don’t have a post-acute destination available for many different reasons. What we’ve done is cohort those patients onto a single unit. This approach has allowed us to use our medical, advanced practice provider and nursing teams differently. Since these patients no longer require acute care, we can staff the unit similarly to a post-acute setting. That adjustment helps us care for more patients and creates additional capacity in other units, improving access to care in the acute care environment.

It’s helped our medical teams, too. They don’t need to round on those patients as frequently, just like they would in a true post-acute environment. And our nursing staffing is aligned with the needs of this specific population, rather than the higher-acuity needs of traditional inpatient units. As a result, we’ve decreased length of stay by 4.27% and increased transfers into Nebraska Medicine by 11.4% — especially from smaller rural hospitals or facilities that aren’t equipped to provide the level of care we offer. That’s been a big win for us.

NevadaChuck Podesta. CIO of Renown Health (Reno): 

The introduction of self-service options has significantly transformed our organization, enhancing both efficiency and patient experience. Over the past year, we have implemented self-service kiosks in high-traffic areas such as imaging and lab spaces. These kiosks enable patients to swiftly check themselves in for appointments, thereby eliminating the need to wait in line for a patient access representative to assist them. This initiative has allowed us to manage increased patient volumes without the need to add additional full-time employees.

Furthermore, we have integrated self-scheduling for imaging, lab, specialty and primary care patients through our Renown website and patient portal, MyChart. Given the substantial growth in our region, this self-scheduling feature has been instrumental in maintaining our call center operations without necessitating an increase in full-time employee volumes.

New HampshireTiffany Haynes, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Officer of North Country Healthcare (Whitefield): 

By leveraging real-time data, North Country Healthcare was able to achieve barcode scanning rates of 99% without the need to hire additional staff or invest in extra resources. Through improved visibility into performance with daily barcode scanning reports, frontline teams were empowered to make immediate adjustments, driving consistency and compliance. This strategic use of existing tools not only optimized workflows but also significantly enhanced patient safety and reinforced a culture of high reliability across our organization.

New Jersey

Robyn Boniewicz. Vice President of AtlantiCare Health Network, Christina Umosella, Assistant Vice President, Transformation and Business Development at AtlantiCare (Morristown):

At AtlantiCare, we have prioritized many transformational strategies to help reduce administrative burden on team members and improve both efficiency and care delivery. One of the most impactful clinical improvements we’ve made over the past year has been workflow enhancements, including pre-visit preparation and post-visit care coordination. What used to be a fragmented workflow is now a coordinated system grounded in consistent, evidence-based standards. 

This redesign has reduced patient wait times, eliminated unnecessary testing, and improved safety and care quality, without adding headcount. It’s a smarter, more cohesive way to function and it’s helping us meet rising demand with the resources we already have.  

By streamlining workflows, empowering subject matter experts, and embracing a test-and-learn mindset, we’ve built a more agile, efficient system that serves more patients without adding headcount.

Key initiatives include:

Pre-visit financial validation: We reallocated subject-matter experts, including customer service representatives, to confirm insurance eligibility and benefits before patient arrival. This has expedited the front-end experience, improved copay collection, and reduced denials. 

Centralized administrative support: Clinical administrative medical assistants now manage medication refills, prior authorizations, and other nonprovider tasks via the patient portal. This shift removes the administrative burden from onsite MAs, enabling them to focus fully on in-person care and provider support.

Centralized observation unit care model: In our centralized observation unit, a cohorted model staffed by dedicated nurses, advanced practice nurses, and hospitalists delivers stable, continuous, and appropriate care, leading to reduced lengths of stay, smoother care transitions, and more personalized attention during observation stays.

RN-led after-hours triage: We redesigned our after-hours care approach so registered nurses handle triage as the first clinical contact. When patients call in the evening, they are routed RNs for support, reducing average nightly provider call volume by 85% while ensuring timely and appropriate care.

New Mexico 

Wayne Gillis. President and CEO at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services (Gallup): 

The new Medicaid rules outlined in the federal reform bill will cause a wave of disenrollment due to complex recertification processes. This puts patients at risk of losing coverage and creates financial strain on hospitals due to increased uncompensated care.

We cannot afford to be passive. This playbook outlines a clear, multi-pronged strategy to help our patients stay covered — protecting both community health and organizational stability.

Preventing avoidable Medicaid coverage losses by building a hospitalwide, patient-centered support system that helps individuals retain or renew their eligibility under the new rules. The key pillars of this strategy are to establish us as a Medicaid enrollment and renewal hub, deploy medicaid navigators in key care areas, activate a medicaid outreach task force, build partnerships with state and community organizations, use technology for smart outreach and educate our workforce. The program also includes a monthly dashboard that shows the financial impact (bad debt avoided), navigator activity and Medicaid reenrollment rates for uninsured ED visits. We are retraining key staff members and optimizing their current workload to redeploy to support the Medicaid retention playbook.

New York

Nader Mherabi. Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer of NYU Langone Health (New York City):Our commitment to putting patients first drives every technology decision we make — ensuring that innovation eliminates barriers and creates seamless access to the exceptional care our teams provide.

We are centering patients’ ability to navigate their care through our MyChart platform. By integrating automated notifications and real-time rescheduling capabilities, we’ve turned what used to be a frustrating experience — dealing with cancellations and scheduling conflicts — into seamless, patient-controlled access to care.

When an appointment becomes available due to a cancellation, patients receive instant notifications and can reschedule with just a few taps on their phone. This enhances convenience and removes barriers that prevent patients from getting the care they need when they need it. We’ve seen significant improvements in appointment utilization and patient satisfaction because we’ve put the power of access directly in patients’ hands.

Our clinical teams can put more focus on providing exceptional care rather than managing complex scheduling logistics. This initiative has allowed us to serve more patients more efficiently while enhancing the experience for everyone involved. It’s an example of how technology can make healthcare more human.

North Carolina Terry McDonnell, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Executive at Duke University Health System (Durham):Like many systems, we’ve been challenged to do more with less — but what’s set Duke apart is our commitment to co-design. One example: we worked directly with bedside nurses and clinical engineers to reimagine our rounding workflow using AI-supported clinical data dashboards. It didn’t require new hires — it required trust in our teams, and a willingness to redesign around their insight. The result? A more seamless patient experience and improved staff capacity without increasing headcount. 

North Dakota

Jeremy Cauwels, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Sanford Health (Dickinson and Lidgerwood):

One of the most effective ways we’ve expanded access without adding staff is through virtual care — particularly for specialty care in rural communities.

A great example is our virtual pediatric pulmonology program. James Wallace, MD, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., treats children with complex lung conditions such as asthma and cystic fibrosis. Thanks to virtual technology, he now sees patients more than 500 miles away — a 7.5-hour drive — in Dickinson, N.D. From his office, he can listen to a child’s lungs, review breathing tests and consult with families and local providers in real-time. This reduces windshield time and allows him to reach more patients.

Another example is our rural satellite clinic in Lidgerwood, N.D. — a town of 500 people located more than an hour from the nearest major medical center in Fargo. Staffed by a nurse, patients come in to connect virtually for primary care, urgent care, follow-up visits and specialty consults. This clinic was originally open only a few days a week due to limited provider availability, but investing in virtual care infrastructure has enabled us to respond directly to the community’s request for consistent, local access to care five days a week.

This model allows us to reach more patients across the rural Midwest with the same number of staff, improving access and easing the burden on families by bringing world-class care closer to home.

Ohio

Jill Evans, MSN, RN. Chief Nursing Informatics Officer and Executive Director Virtual Care Enterprise at MetroHealth (Cleveland): 

Digital solutions are crucial in addressing workforce shortages, reducing burnout and transforming care delivery. Investing in these tools is not just about innovation; it’s about creating a sustainable healthcare system that prioritizes patient well-being and nurse satisfaction.

MetroHealth’s investment in digital tools spans enhancements to our EHR, virtual nursing capabilities, and AI-powered technologies for personalized care. Reflecting on the past three to five years, we’ve been deliberate in our technology choices for nursing. The Glick Center, opened in 2022, was a result of years of planning and discussions with nursing leadership. We strategically deployed mobile technologies, such as iPhones for documentation, before the opening to ease the transition. The new tower introduced advanced technologies, including digital whiteboards integrated with our EHR and RTLS, displaying employee photos in patient rooms. Digital door signs outside patient rooms provide caregivers with essential information from our EHR before entering.

We leveraged the iPads implemented on the units in 2023 to begin our virtual nursing program, using existing technology to create meaningful change at the bedside. This initiative has helped ease the burden on inpatient nurses by supporting routine tasks and patient interactions virtually, allowing bedside nurses to focus more on direct patient care. By optimizing our current digital infrastructure, we are not only addressing critical challenges like nursing shortages and burnout but also improving overall nurse satisfaction and retention.

OklahomaPidge Lohr, DNP, RN. Chief Nursing Officer of Integris Health (Oklahoma City):

One of the most impactful ways we’ve expanded care delivery without increasing staffing is by empowering nurses to be the architects of their own work through a revitalized shared governance structure. Rather than retrofitting top-down changes, frontline nurses now lead the redesign of workflows and processes.Including nurses before launching any initiative that affects their workflows is a critical element of effective change management. As the professionals closest to patient care, nurses offer invaluable insights into daily operations, the feasibility of proposed changes, and potential unintended consequences. Engaging them early ensures that solutions are practical, safe and sustainable, and it prevents costly rework down the line. Beyond operational benefits, involving nurses as true partners honors their expertise, builds trust and significantly increases the likelihood of successful adoption and meaningful improvements in both clinical and patient outcomes.

A powerful example is the nurse-led standardization of product use, such as foam cup sizes, which is projected to save the system over $200,000 annually. These kinds of initiatives showcase how empowering clinical teams to lead operational decisions not only improves workflow but also contributes meaningfully to financial stewardship.

While our virtual nursing model was not developed through shared governance, its implementation was strengthened by the feedback of frontline nurses. By offloading admissions, documentation and patient education to virtual RNs, we’ve extended capacity at the bedside — allowing us to serve more patients, more safely, with the team we already have.

Nathan Robinson. IT Director at Choctaw Nation Health Services Authority (Talihina): 

One significant advancement has been the deployment of a robust profile management solution. This allows staff to move seamlessly throughout the organization without losing their personalized settings, ensuring a consistent and familiar work environment — regardless of location or task.

We’ve also introduced an integrated [online] fax solution, significantly reducing the manual burden associated with traditional faxing. This improvement frees up valuable time and resources, allowing staff to dedicate more attention to patient care.

Collaboration across departments has been key to identifying and streamlining time-consuming manual processes. From automating spreadsheet tracking to standardizing reporting, our teams have developed solutions that minimize errors, improve efficiency and ensure consistent, actionable data.

Over the past year, we successfully implemented an upgraded EMR system with Epic. This update offers enhanced integration with third-party applications and provides improved visibility for both healthcare providers and patients.

Oregon

Anne Daly, RN. Chief Compliance Officer at Samaritan Health Services (Corvallis): Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center improved patient throughput and reduced hospital stays through cross-functional collaboration.

The effort resulted in a significant reduction in average length of stay for patients using hospitalist services, which went from 6.96 days in April 2024 to 5.51 days in April 2025. This allowed hospitalists to see 86 more new patients that month.

Key changes included standardized rounds, better discharge planning and improved patient placement. The initiative cut medically ready-for-discharge patients in beds by 15–22%, increased surgical bed availability and boosted operational efficiency — allowing the hospital to serve more patients while maintaining care quality.

PennsylvaniaMitchell Schnall, MD, PhD. Senior Vice President for Data and Technology Solutions at Penn Medicine (Philadelphia):Given our overcrowded ED and inpatient facilities, we have developed a program called PATH (Practical Alternative to Hospitalization). Patients who might normally be admitted for short stays and observations are being sent home with care coordination and home care support. We have been able to avoid hospitalizations with low bounce-back rates and high patient satisfaction, while more quickly moving patients out of the ED, also impacting boarding.

Rhode Island

Thomas Wold, DO. Chief Medical Officer at Kent Hospital (Warwick): 

We’ve optimized patient throughput without increasing staff by centralizing our multidisciplinary ‘Blitz Rounds’ and pairing them with a systemwide ‘Code Triage’ escalation process. Blitz Rounds bring together physicians, nurses, case managers and support staff each day to review every inpatients’ care plan in a focused, collaborative setting. This real-time coordination has significantly reduced delays in care decisions and discharge planning.

When barriers to movement arise — such as bottlenecks in discharge or ICU capacity — our Code Triage protocol triggers immediate cross-departmental action, enabling safe, timely transitions. Together, these initiatives have meaningfully lowered the average length of stay, allowing us to care for more patients using the same staffing resources. It’s a testament to what’s possible when teams are empowered to act quickly, communicate clearly, and keep patients at the center of every decision.

South Carolina

Amy Linsin. Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Prisma Health (Greenville):

We partnered with WellStreet Urgent Care and quickly multiplied the number of patients we’ve seen. We’ve been actively measuring how many new patients we gain at Prisma Health based on referrals — not those who have already visited us, but individuals who have never accessed our system. On average, 22% of people who visit one of our urgent care centers go on to make a first-time appointment with Prisma Health. These are individuals who may not have primary care doctors or who have only interacted with our system through the ER. We consider that joint venture a real positive.

South Dakota 

Amanda Saeger. CFO of Dakota Vascular (Sioux Falls):

By creating a dedicated phone room for patient calls, Dakota Vascular has centralized communication and reduced disruptions to clinical staff. This focused environment allows existing team members to handle calls more efficiently and consistently. As a result, patient inquiries are resolved faster, improving service without the need for additional hires.

TennesseeAmit Vashist, MD. Senior Vice-President and Chief Clinical Officer of Ballad Health Tennessee/Virginia (Johnson City): One of the most impactful redesigns we undertook across the clinical enterprise at Ballad Health this past year was the creation of our Outcomes and Intelligence Hub, a result of the collaboration between our Center for Clinical Transformation and Clinical Informatics. This centralized, Power BI-enabled platform brings together data from disparate sources like our EHR, public databases and other systems into a unified, real-time view of clinical and patient care outcomes. We launched this initiative in response to what we were consistently hearing from across the system. Our nurses, physicians, and executive leadership were not asking for more reports or metrics. They were seeking clarity and relevance. They wanted actionable insights that could guide decisions and improve care at the bedside. The Hub supports this by helping teams connect information to impact and turn insights into scalable action, all without adding new staff.The purpose behind this work is to bring systemness across a complex enterprise, reduce fragmentation and eliminate siloes. While we have made meaningful strides in outcomes and care transformation, the Outcomes and Intelligence Hub gives us the infrastructure to build upon that progress. As W. Edwards Deming, the renowned quality guru and systems thinker, noted a system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. In a healthcare environment flooded with data, this Hub brings order, focus and alignment. We started with descriptive analytics and are moving quickly toward predictive and ultimately prescriptive capabilities. Each layer we add will strengthen decision-making and front-line performance. This is not a static tool. It is a living platform built to evolve with our mission, helping ensure that what gets measured gets managed and what gets managed improves.

TexasErin Asprec, Executive Vice President and COO at Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston): Two major initiatives have helped us serve more patients without the addition of staff. First is our Patient Flow Center. We now have line of sight on all our acute care beds across the system and their status. Utilizing care leveling documents and algorithms designed by multidisciplinary teams in each service line, we have optimized the utilization of our beds placing the right patient in the right care setting. Second, we underwent a “clinical care redesign.” Through this initiative, we worked with multidisciplinary teams by service line and utilized evidence-based medicine to establish consistent care pathways across the system to decrease care variation. This has successfully resulted in decreased lengths of stay and utilization costs in supplies, drugs and tests.

UtahMandy Richards, DNP, RN. Chief Nursing Executive at Intermountain Health (Salt Lake City):At Intermountain Health, we’ve embraced care model redesign as a strategic imperative to address the dual challenge of a shrinking nursing workforce and rising patient demand. One of our most promising innovations is the integration of AI-powered ambient listening technology, which we implemented after a time motion study revealed nurses were spending 27% of their time on documentation. By reducing this burden, we’re enabling nurses to focus more on patient care, connection, and education.

Working with our partners, we’ve tailored this technology to meet nursing-specific needs, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive—nurses are embracing it, and patients are noticing the difference. Early results show that documentation is entered into the chart 38% faster, and we anticipate even greater time savings as we continue to evaluate outcomes. This is a compelling example of how technology can drive efficiency, allowing our nurses to spend more time with patients.

VermontPhil Rau. Communications and Media Specialist, UVM Health (Burlington):Our systemwide Emergency Department staffing model, which delivers high-quality care at EDs across UVM Health Network, is generating a ton of positive patient feedback, and is a really effective and innovative approach to providing high-acuity, high-quality emergency care in rural settings where it is more likely physicians must deal with limited clinical resources, training opportunities and infrequent but time-sensitive emergencies.The model – Our Department of Emergency Medicine is built on a medical group staffed by about 100 EM physicians who work across our seven emergency departments (including Plattsburgh, Malone, Elizabethtown and Ticonderoga, N.Y.). The physicians are credentialed at multiple locations and practice at two or more ED locations, with special attention given to ensuring each ED is staffed by physicians with a diversity of clinical experience.

For example: an ED physician may spend part of their week at Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone (a small critical access …

Austin, Texas-based St. David’s HealthCare has named Dawn Nichols, DNP, RN, vice president of women’s and children’s services. Ms. Nichols began the role in June, according to a news release shared with Becker’s.

Ms. Nichols is responsible for strategy, business development and operational coordination across women’s and children’s service lines, and will work with staff to support the expansion of services for St. David’s HeathCare and HCA Healthcare’s Central and West Texas division. 

She joins the team from Texas Health Resources, where she spent more than 20 years in leadership roles.
The post St. David’s HealthCare taps vice president of women’s and children’s services  appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.

The automotive industry’s roadmap to autonomy offers a blueprint for healthcare AI that creates value across the entire healthcare ecosystem.

As rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps develop lower-cost, increasingly efficient workplace solutions, workers across all industries face concerns about the “human impact” on long-held positions. Software engineers, call center employees, technical support professionals, and administrative staff wonder what AI means for their careers—not just in coming years, but in the months ahead.

Healthcare is not immune to these concerns. Leaders obsess over whether AI will replace doctors, nurses, and hospital staff. But they’re asking the wrong question.

Dr. Chetan Rao, a cardiologist in Houston, spends 3 hours daily on documentation—time stolen from patient interactions. When doctors are buried in paperwork, patients wait longer and receive rushed consultations while operations suffer from inefficient workflows and staff burnout.

The real question is: How can healthcare follow the automotive industry’s proven automation playbook to restore the joy of practicing medicine while creating transformational value across the entire healthcare ecosystem?

The Automotive Blueprint That Works

The automotive sector didn’t jump to fully self-driving cars. Instead, it created a six-level framework progressing methodically from driver assistance to full autonomy. Today’s real innovations happen in Levels 1-4, not Level 5.

Consider the numbers: Road accidents kill 1.2 million people annually, mostly due to human error. Cars sit idle 95% of the time. These pain points mirror healthcare’s challenges perfectly. Level 1-2 automotive solutions—like Tesla’s Autopilot and Waymo’s autonomous taxis—already deliver measurable safety and efficiency gains.

The lesson? You don’t need full autonomy to create transformational value.

The Hidden Crisis: Medicine’s Ecosystem-Wide Joy Deficit

Healthcare faces a purpose crisis affecting everyone. Physician burnout rates hit 63% in 2022, with administrative burden as the primary culprit.

The stark numbers:

4.5 million global nursing shortage by 2030 (WHO)

124,000 physician shortfall by 2034 in the U.S. alone (AAMC)

Administrative and non-patient-facing tasks consume 33%+ of physician time

Patients wait an average of 26 days for new appointments—up 24% since 2004, and the story even worse when you look at several specialties and markets

Burnout costs the U.S. healthcare system $4.6 billion annually, with each departing physician costing $500,000-$1 million to replace

Dr. Rao entered cardiology to save lives, not navigate insurance pre-authorizations. “I became a doctor to heal people,” he says, “not to be a data entry clerk.”

His patient, Maria Rodriguez, feels the impact: “Dr. Rao used to spend 20 minutes listening to me. Now he’s typing the whole time.”

The Healthcare Automation Levels

Level 1 (Basic Assistance): AI suggests diagnoses, assists with prescriptions. Smart spell-check for medical decisions.

Level 2 (Partial Automation): Da Vinci surgical robots enhance precision, automated scheduling optimizes operations. AI handles specific tasks under human supervision.

Level 3 (Conditional Automation): Virtual assistants manage routine interactions, AI-driven clinical decision support handles standard cases with physician oversight for complex situations.

Level 4 (High Automation): Autonomous surgical robots for specific procedures, AI manages chronic disease protocols with minimal human intervention.

Level 5 (Full Automation): Fully autonomous hospitals—still theoretical and arguably unnecessary if Levels 1-4 restore medicine’s fulfillment.

Where the Real Value Lives

Most healthcare systems operate between Levels 1-2 today—exactly where automotive found massive value creation opportunities.

Immediate wins for providers:

Administrative automation freeing up 40+ hours per physician weekly

Ambient listening technology eliminating typing during patient encounters

AI-powered clinical documentation generating visit notes automatically

Revenue cycle optimization through automated coding and prior authorization

AI-powered diagnostic assistance reducing error rates by 20-30%

Immediate wins for patients:

Reduced wait times through AI-optimized scheduling

24/7 access to care via AI-powered virtual assistants

Personalized care plans from continuous remote monitoring

Simplified financial experience with upfront cost estimation and consolidated billing

Immediate wins for operations & administrative teams:

Augmenting supply chain contracting and management predicting inventory needs, intelligent request for proposal (RFP) and contracting automation

Intelligent workforce scheduling matching staffing to patient volumes

Streamlined prior authorization with AI-powered submission tracking

Intelligent denials management automating appeals and preventing rejections

Dr. Rao’s hospital recently implemented Level 2 automation. “I’m spending 90 minutes more daily with patients,” he reports. “I’m remembering why I fell in love with cardiology.” Maria notices: “Dr. Rao looks me in the eye again.”

Mid-term opportunities (3-7 years): Conditional automation in emergency triaging, AI-assisted surgical planning, and integrated care coordination that eliminates fragmented communication while providing seamless patient transitions and real-time operational visibility.

Long-term vision (7+ years): Autonomous chronic disease management freeing physicians for complex care, self-optimizing hospital operations achieving maximum efficiency, and comprehensive predictive health modeling powered by digital twins that shifts medicine from treatment to prevention.

Implementation Reality Check: Current barriers mirror automotive’s early challenges—education and change management, regulatory uncertainty around FDA approval processes, data interoperability requiring FHIR standards, trust concerns, and HIPAA compliance. These are solvable engineering and policy problems, not fundamental barriers.

The Strategic Imperative

Healthcare leaders should ask: “How do we systematically move from Level 1 to Level 4 automation while making care easy to access for patients and restoring what makes medicine meaningful for clinicians?”

The winning strategy:

Master Level 2 automation in administrative workflows—immediate physician satisfaction gains while reducing patient wait times and streamlining operations 

Pilot Level 3 solutions in controlled clinical environments while preserving physician agency in complex decisions

Invest in workforce development emphasizing augmentation, not displacement, while educating patients about AI-enhanced care and upskilling operations teams for technology-enabled workflows

Build trust through transparency and measurable outcomes that demonstrate enhanced rather than diminished medical practice 

The Enterprise Advantage: Scaling Across Health Networks

The real competitive advantage comes from implementing this roadmap at enterprise scale. Health systems with multiple facilities can:

Standardize automation platforms across locations, reducing complexity and costs

Share predictive models trained on network-wide data for more accurate insights

Create centers of excellence for advanced automation pilots

Leverage purchasing power while ensuring interoperability

Build network-wide patient flow optimization

The Bottom Line

Healthcare’s automation journey should follow automotive’s proven path: gradual, systematic progression that restores the joy of practicing medicine while creating transformational value for providers, patients, and operations.

The industry that learns this lesson first—that Levels 1-4 are where physicians rediscover their purpose while creating massive business value—will capture the majority of healthcare AI’s $150+ billion market opportunity.

Dr. Rao’s transformation tells the story: “Automation gave me back my medical practice. I’m solving diagnostic puzzles again instead of fighting with software.” The operations director adds: “Staff satisfaction is up 40%, overtime down 60%, patient throughput improved 25%. This is what healthcare transformation looks like.”

The question isn’t whether healthcare will automate. It’s whether your organization will lead the transformation or be disrupted by those who do.

Author Bios:

Feby Abraham, PhD, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy and Innovations Officer
Memorial Hermann Health System Dr. Feby Abraham joined Memorial Hermann Health System in 2020 as Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy and Innovations Officer.  In his role, Dr. Abraham is responsible for leading strategic planning initiatives for the organization to drive its strategic investments and partnerships (including in several AI companies), corporate development, strategic market insights and innovation efforts.  In 2023 and 2024, Dr. Abraham was named as one of Modern Healthcare’s “Top 25 Innovators to Know.” In 2024, Dr. Abraham was recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review as a “Chief Strategy Officer to Know,” an honor he received in 2023 and 2022, as well. Dr. Abraham serves on multiple boards across diverse health care and technology sectors.  Prior to joining Memorial Hermann, Dr. Abraham served as a partner at McKinsey & Co. Dr. Abraham holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Rice University, and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India.

Venkat Mocherla is the Co-Founder of Midstream Health, an enterprise AI company focused on enhancing financial operations for some of the world’s largest healthcare delivery organizations. He previously served as an Operating Partner at Andreessen Horowitz  (a16z) on the Bio/Healthcare team. At a16z, he led the founding team of the Bio/Healthcare GTM group and advised portfolio companies on GTM strategy, business development, sales and product marketing. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, Venkat has a track record of scaling early stage companies such as Qventus and Paladina Health (now part of Marthon Health). He also previously served in various strategy and commercial operations roles in  organizations such as DaVita and The Advisory Board Company. 
The post Healthcare’s Self-Driving Moment: Why Automation Could Restore Joy of Medicine for Everyone appeared first on Becker’s Hospital Review | Healthcare News & Analysis.

Nursing doesn’t look like it did five years ago. Today’s workforce wants more control over when, where, and how they work, and many are willing to leave roles that don’t accommodate those preferences. Rigid scheduling models make it harder to recruit and easier to lose good nurses. Too often, staffing decisions still rely on assumptions that no longer reflect how the workforce actually wants to work. 

For the first time, flexibility has overtaken pay as one of the top drivers of nurse satisfaction. In response, many hospitals are experimenting with new workforce models that blend core roles with more flexible or external options, but making flexibility work at scale takes more than just offering new shift types.It requires thoughtful implementation, strong operational buy-in, and a willingness to continuously evaluate what’s motivating the workforce. 

Technology plays a key role in that process. Digital platforms give leaders visibility into workforce dynamics. They enable more responsive scheduling, reveal patterns across units and markets, and help identify where adjustments are needed. Flexibility alone doesn’t guarantee better outcomes, but paired with the right data and feedback, it gives health systems the ability to adapt with purpose.
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