This Week Health: Conference

August 29, 2025: Michael Robinson , VP of Healthcare Solutions (Americas) from Omnissa , discusses what it takes to maintain momentum during massive transitions and Omnissa's vision for autonomous workspaces. As healthcare organizations face shrinking margins and accelerating digital demands, Michael explores how strategic partnerships with Epic and CrowdStrike are reshaping the technology landsca...

August 28, 2025: In this Keynote Rewind episode, we explore how organizations balance the revolutionary potential of generative AI with the critical need for rock-solid infrastructure. Leaders share stories of mobile clinics outperforming traditional facilities, drone deliveries reaching remote islands, and home-based care achieving superior outcomes to hospital stays. With TEFCA enabling secure d...

August 27, 2025: Dan Dodson , CEO of Fortified Health Security , discusses how healthcare organizations are rethinking cybersecurity strategy amid mounting financial pressures. Dan shares insights from their Nashville Executive Briefing Center, where healthcare leaders are uncovering critical gaps in their security programs. As AI tools spread faster than anyone anticipated—with physicians using p...

August 26, 2025: Anika Gardenhire , RN, Chief Digital and Transformation Officer at Ardent Health , joins Reid Stephan , VP and CIO at St. Luke’s Health System , to discuss the complicated world of nursing. As healthcare faces workforce shortages and an aging population, the discussion examines whether current documentation requirements are actual regulations or simply historical inertia that's ne...

August 25, 2025: Chase Franzen , VP and CISO at Sharp Healthcare , discusses how they transformed their cybersecurity training into something so engaging that employees actually call it fun. But as AI capabilities advance at breakneck speed, what happens when traditional phishing indicators disappear and deepfakes become indistinguishable from reality? Chase discusses Sharp's AI ethics committee a...

August 21, 2025: In this Keynote Rewind, healthcare leaders are hitting their breaking point, and the numbers tell only part of the story. This episode goes beyond burnout statistics to reveal how some organizations are quietly transforming healthcare work—reducing alert fatigue from a million notifications to under 100,000, implementing "wellness sprints" where IT teams shadow physicians, and ach...

August 20, 2025: Michael Fredrickson , VP of Sales for US Healthcare from Rubrik , discusses cyber resilience when patient care is on the line. Michael reveals the sobering reality that many younger nurses have never worked without electronic health records. What happens when these systems fail, and staff trained entirely on digital platforms must suddenly revert to pen and paper? As they discuss...

August 19, 2025: Dr. William Morgan , MD, CEO at Copiah County Medical Center , discusses his unexpected four-year transformation of CCMC, a rural Mississippi hospital that's now pioneering AI-driven healthcare solutions. William discusses how partnerships with companies like Neteera have enabled everything from AI fall prevention to real-time patient monitoring, fundamentally changing how rural c...

August 18, 2025: Stephanie Lahr , MD, Founder of Vital Thread Advisory, reveals her transition from healthcare executive to solo consultant. What drives a seasoned physician-executive to question decades of traditional employment and embrace the uncertainty of independent consulting? Stephanie discusses overcoming the fear of leaving structured organizations, the practical realities of building Vi...

August 14, 2025: Healthcare has moved from "what if" to "what now" with AI, as health systems quietly implement artificial intelligence across operations from revenue cycle to bedside care. Bill Russell explores how virtual care adoption jumped from 3% to 95% in three months, questioning whether healthcare's barriers are truly technological or cultural. As hospitals face mounting complexity and cl...

August 13, 2025: Eric Utzinger , Co-Founder and Chief Client Officer at Revuud , tackles the world of healthcare consulting. Drawing from 15 years in healthcare consulting, Eric reveals how the industry shifted around 2013, creating a system where traditional staffing firms often add little value beyond letterhead while charging substantial markups. What happens when technology enables direct acce...

August 12, 2025: Dr. Zafar Chaudry , SVP, CDIO, and AI Officer, speaks with Dr. Vittorio Gallo, Chief Scientific Officer at Seattle Children's Research Institute , about the transformation happening in pediatric research. As healthcare shifts from traditional lab work to data-driven science, how are research institutions keeping pace with the explosion of information they're generating? Vittorio d...

August 7, 2025: In this Keynote recap, Bill takes viewers through the untold reality behind digital transformation: the biggest obstacles aren't technological, they're human. What happens when you're tasked with building an entire IT department from scratch, or when you have to justify why a hospital even needs a CIO? As organizations develop their fourth digital roadmap and AI promises to revolut...

August 6, 2025: Lisbeth Votruba , Chief Clinical Officer at AvaSure and a third-generation nurse, discusses how virtual care technology is transforming healthcare delivery. How can AI-powered platforms help nurses return to more personalized, joyful patient care while addressing the growing crisis of workplace violence in hospitals? Lisbeth shares her journey from ICU nurse to tech executive, disc...

July 31, 2025: Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson preview their upcoming show changes while tackling critical CIO challenges. They discuss "CIO escape rooms"—high-pressure scenarios such as your EHR vendor going out of business or handling a 3 AM security breach. How do healthcare IT leaders navigate the treacherous waters of CEO transitions, and what's the real difference between a w...

July 30, 2025: Marco Casale , Systems Integration Architect at the University of Rochester , and Drew Ivan , Chief Architect at Rhapsody , join Bill to discuss healthcare interoperability. What would happen if these critical integration platforms suddenly went down, and why does even Epic need hundreds of external connections to keep hospitals running? The discussion covers the evolution from HL7...

Even cyber pros have technical issues sometimes – our camera caught a bug, but the audio is clean and packed with security insights! July 28, 2025: Aaron Heath , CISO and Cybersecurity Counsel at the Medical University of South Carolina , and Brian Zegers , Information Security Officer at Lee Health , discuss a variety of security topics. The conversation takes a turn when both leaders address the...

July 24, 2025: Theresa McDonnell , Chief Nursing Executive and SVP at Duke University Health System , discusses how she maintains her clinical practice while leading strategic transformation across a billion-dollar organization. What specific changes helped Duke reduce nurse turnover from 21% to 11%? Theresa discusses her role in orchestrating the complex $1.7 billion merger that created the Fred...

July 23, 2025: Michael Vipond , Head of Healthcare Provider GTM at ServiceNow , discusses everything from the basics to the cutting edge of AI. As health systems face mounting pressure from Medicare cuts and operational costs, how do leaders navigate the difference between traditional automation and the emerging world of agentic AI? Michael reveals how AI agents are already handling IT incidents a...

July 22, 2025: Charles Christian , VP of Technology and CTO at Franciscan Health , joins Nayan Patel , SVP of FinThrive , to discuss their healthcare innovation lab and supporting clinicians. What happens when a tech giant realizes it can't just provide a platform but must become a true partner in life-safety systems? Charles reveals how Franciscan's tech innovation lab uses donated equipment and...

July 21, 2025: Amie Teske , Founder and CEO of Echelon , joins Sarah to discuss how she is shifting the landscape of sales. Amie discusses the realities of solo practitioner work, from pricing your expertise to maintaining sanity without a traditional corporate structure. How has institutional investment reshaped the sales landscape, and what does it take to create genuine peer communities for hig...

July 17, 2025: Chris Harper , CIO and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor of AI at the University of Kansas Medical Center , discusses the nuances of AI governance. Chris discusses why he'd rather be "a pro than a hero" and how this philosophy shapes his collaborative leadership style in implementing AI solutions. They explore his organization's strategic technology bets over two decades, from meanin...

July 16, 2025: Aaron Neinstein, MD , Chief Medical Officer at Notable Health , explores breaking down the barriers to the patient experience with AI. The conversation examines the human side of AI implementation and how leaders can address workforce fears while ensuring automation enhances rather than replaces care delivery. How do you shift from thinking about AI as labor replacement to embracing...

July 11, 2025: Mick Coady , CTO at Armis , tackles a problem that has been haunting healthcare IT for decades: you can't protect what you don't know you have. The conversation reveals how hospitals still rely on manual processes to track everything from IV pumps to imaging equipment, often discovering critical vulnerabilities only when it's too late. What's the real cost when imaging machines sit...

July 10, 2025: Christopher Scanzera , Interim CIO at Lurie Children's Hospital , and Judy Kirby , Executive Recruiter at Kirby Partners , join Bill for a discussion around interim roles. With 53% of sitting healthcare CIOs having been in their roles for only three years, what Bill dubs “the great CIO musical chairs,” the conversation dives into the critical differences between interim and permanen...