Healthy As Tech Talks

Fragmented portals. Outdated SharePoint sites. Healthcare employees spending more time hunting for answers than doing their jobs. That’s the reality in most healthcare organizations today, and it’s costing time, money, and staff satisfaction. 

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Natalie Tollefson and Matthew Allen, discuss how leading healthcare organizations are simplifying the employee experience by offering one front door for every department on ServiceNow. You’ll see what healthcare’s best-practice portal strategy looks like, and why unifying the front end is the secret to employee efficiency.

In this episode, we explore

- The hidden costs of fragmented portals in healthcare and how to fix them
- The three stages of the portal journey and how to know where your organization stands today
- How a “one start shop” helps clinicians, HR, IT, and operations staff find answers and take action faster
- Why a unified ServiceNow employee portal is the new healthcare best practice for efficiency

If you’re an IT, HR, or healthcare operations leader looking to improve efficiency and simplify the employee experience, this conversation is for you.

Want to explore how Optimum Healthcare IT can help guide your portal journey? Reach out to our team or learn more about our ServiceNow services.

When your preventive maintenance (PM) slips, it’s not just compliance at risk; it’s patient lives.

For clinical engineering teams, keeping PM schedules up to date is critical. But when your scheduling system can’t handle grace periods, floating schedules, audit-ready reporting, and location-based requirements, things can spiral fast.

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Natalie Tollefson, Sr. Director of Customer Success at Optimum Healthcare IT, sits down with Ann Rovito, Director of Clinical Engineering at Children’s Wisconsin, and Shelby Johns, ServiceNow Principal Advisory Consultant, CDM-FSM at Optimum, to share how they used a custom ServiceNow CMMS app to get over 15,000 PM schedules back on track for Children’s Wisconsin and streamline new model intake and compliance processes.

In this discussion, we explore:

• Smarter fixed and floating schedules with automatic updates for grace periods and location rules
• A faster, audit-ready process for adding new device models with built-in risk assessments
• The benefits of having full visibility of your clinical and IT assets on one platform
• How to design a CMMS that fits your needs with a ServiceNow partner who knows clinical engineering

If your organization already uses the ServiceNow platform for IT or facilities but hasn’t extended it to clinical engineering, this talk is for you.

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Rob Summitt, VP of Cloud Transformation and AI at Optimum, will sit down with Carrie Delente, Chief Visionary Officer at Celerate, and Seth Fogie, Sr. Information Security Consultant at Optimum, to unpack what it really takes to bring real-time, secure clinical intelligence to life, and how other organizations can do the same.

In this episode, we explore:

• The urgent need for real-time clinical intelligence, and why most AI tools fall short
• How Celerate created an AI solution to close a major care gap for neurosurgeons
• How Optimum strengthened the tool’s accuracy, security, and clinical usability
• What every healthcare leader should know before building or buying a clinical AI tool

If you're a healthcare leader looking to empower clinicians with faster, safer access to the knowledge they need and build a secure foundation for AI use, this conversation is for you.

Want to explore how Optimum Healthcare IT can help your organization move forward with trusted AI? Reach out to our team to learn more.

When patients call with urgent medical needs, the last thing they should experience is elevator music and long hold times. However, with healthcare staff shortages, complex care coordination, and agents navigating multiple systems, even the most committed healthcare teams struggle to keep up.

In this Healthy as Tech talk, Eric Schuller, Executive Cloud Advisor at Optimum Healthcare IT, and Ken Daugherty, Consulting Specialist CXE at AWS, discuss how Amazon Connect is bringing Amazon’s consumer-grade user design to patient access and creating better experiences for patients, agents, and providers alike.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the traditional contact center model is no longer meeting healthcare’s demands
• How cloud-native AI tools are creating the fast and personal experiences patients crave
• How prioritization and smart routing make escalations and provider access seamless
• How HIPAA-ready sentiment analytics are redefining compliance and care quality
• How to scale capacity up or down without added overhead with pay-per-use pricing

If you’re an IT or operations leader looking to create better patient and agent experiences, reduce overhead, and streamline communication and data-sharing across your organization, this talk is for you.

Want to explore how Optimum Healthcare IT can help your organization expand its cloud strategy with Amazon Connect and other healthcare-centric cloud solutions? Reach out to our team or learn more about our cloud transformation services.

Healthcare IT leaders are facing a critical decision: Is it time to move on from their traditional virtual desktop infrastructure?

With rising costs, licensing frustrations, and a growing push for cloud-first strategies, many organizations are eyeing Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) as a modern alternative. However, with Azure Virtual Desktop still relatively new in healthcare, there’s one big question on everyone’s mind: Is it truly ready for the demands of hospital IT environments?

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Jacob Schmidt, Senior Manager of Technical Services at Baptist Memorial Health Care, discusses his experience rolling out AVD, what’s working, and what’s not. Nickolas Raker, Healthcare Solution Consultant at Microsoft, also discusses how Microsoft is iterating to ensure AVD can meet healthcare’s demands.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why Azure Virtual Desktop is gaining traction as hospitals rethink their virtual desktop strategies
• Real-world insights from Baptist Memorial Health Care’s AVD rollout
• How Microsoft is iterating on AVD to address healthcare-specific concerns
• Practical advice for IT leaders evaluating whether AVD fits their strategy

If you’re a healthcare CIO, CTO, or IT leader navigating desktop virtualization, this is your opportunity to get firsthand insights into the AVD experience from a healthcare leader’s lens and the clarity you need to move forward.

Want to explore how Optimum can help your organization evaluate and implement AVD confidently? Reach out to our team or learn more about our cloud transformation services.

AI is spreading rapidly across healthcare, and without the right guardrails, your organization could be one prompt away from a serious breach.

As a healthcare IT leader, are you confident you know where AI is being used across your organization? Do you have the proper safeguards to keep data secure, patients protected, and compliance in check?

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Natalie Tollefson, Sr. Director of Customer Success at Optimum Healthcare IT, sits down with Jonathan Banks, CISO and Senior Cybersecurity Consultant at Optimum, and Nicholas Friedman, President at Templar Shield, to explore how IT and security leaders can embrace the opportunities of AI without opening their organization up to serious risks.

In this episode, we break down:

- The hidden risks of shadow AI and how to uncover unauthorized usage
- How to conduct an AI audit and assess where your biggest vulnerabilities lie
- The policies and safeguards every CIO and CISO should have in place
- What an effective AI governance framework looks like — and how to get started

If you’re a healthcare CIO, CISO, or IT leader looking to harness the power of AI while staying compliant and secure, this episode is for you.

Interested in how Optimum Healthcare IT can help your organization implement an AI governance strategy that supports safe innovation? Reach out to get started.

Why Epic Is Urging Healthcare To Use This Tool To Fight Ransomware

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Curtis Hendrick, Senior Vice President of Cloud & Digital Transformation at Optimum Healthcare IT, sits down with Matt Dinger from AWS to discuss why Epic is urging healthcare organizations to adopt an Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE) to fight ransomware.

This episode explores:

• Why traditional disaster recovery isn’t enough to protect against ransomware
• How IRE ensures uninterrupted patient care even during a cyberattack
• The game-changing features that set IRE apart, from secure read and write access to isolated cloud environments
• How organizations can start taking steps toward ransomware resilience with IRE

If you’re a healthcare leader looking to ensure IT infrastructure stability, data security, and uninterrupted care in the face of ransomware, this episode is for you.

Interested in how Optimum Healthcare IT can help you implement IRE and fortify your Epic environment? Visit our website or contact us today to get started.

Healthcare organizations invest thousands of dollars in tools to help them better control their data and gain deeper insights.

But what if the most powerful data tool you could leverage was right under your nose?

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Natalie Tollefson, Sr. Director of Customer Success at Optimum Healthcare IT, sits down with Terri Mikol, Data and Analytics Governance Advisor, to discuss proven strategies for transforming healthcare data into your most strategic asset on the ServiceNow® platform. 

In this episode, we explore how to:

• Inventory data and assign accountabilities just like you do with other business functions
• Manage data quality incident reports centrally and increase visibility to all data users
• Create one master inventory of analytics solutions like reports, dashboards, and cubes

If you’re a healthcare data and analytics manager looking to gain control over your data or are a business leader seeking to deepen insights without investing in new, unnecessary tools, this episode is for you.

If you're a healthcare CIO, you're probably feeling the heat to adopt AI — but where do you even begin?

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Natalie Tollefson from Optimum Healthcare IT sits down with Aaron Miri, SVP, Chief Digital & Information Officer at Baptist Health, and Michael Peter, Chief AI Architect at Thinkgen.ai, to discuss how healthcare CIO AI adoption is transforming day-to-day operations and patient care. They explore practical steps organizations of all sizes can take to get started with AI.

In this episode, we explore:

- Real-world use cases of how Baptist Health is using AI to improve patient service
- How to choose the right AI model from a sea of options
- Where to start in building your AI strategy and policies
- How to get users and stakeholders on board and ready to use AI

If you're a healthcare CIO looking to start or accelerate your AI journey, this episode is for you.

Implementing and running an enterprise EMR system like Epic is no easy feat. 

As EMR leaders, how do you make it easier for clinicians to get IT support, efficiently manage enhancement requests, and test and deploy Epic updates with high accuracy and audit-proof documentation?

In this episode of Healthy as Tech, Natalie Tollefson and Louie Gomez from Optimum Healthcare IT sat down with Eddie Vidal from Memorial Healthcare System to discuss how leveraging purpose-built tools on the ServiceNow platform can streamline Epic’s processes, reduce clinician frustration, and increase overall ROI.

In this episode, we discuss how ServiceNow can increase Epic ROI by:

• Enhancing clinician experience around EMR incident management
• Improving governance for EMR enhancement requests
• Streamlining error-prone manual testing processes
• Strengthening change control and release management

If you're looking to maximize your Epic investment and drive efficiency, this episode is for you.

Want to learn more about how Optimum can use ServiceNow to help your healthcare organization overcome its most significant Epic challenges? Visit our website or send us a message to learn more.