Mark Hagan joins Elevate Care to discuss the dynamic role of technology in healthcare, especially in workforce management. He highlights the importance of strong partnerships between CIOs and HR leaders, effective change management strategies, and the role of AI in improving employee experiences. Mark also emphasizes the critical need for robust technology and data foundations to drive success across healthcare organizations
Mark Hagan joins Elevate Care to discuss the dynamic role of technology in healthcare, especially in workforce management. He highlights the importance of strong partnerships between CIOs and HR leaders, effective change management strategies, and the role of AI in improving employee experiences. Mark also emphasizes the critical need for robust technology and data foundations to drive success across healthcare organizations.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Healthcare Technology Leadership
02:46 The Evolution of Workforce Technology in Healthcare
06:10 Strategic Partnerships: CIOs and HR Leaders
08:58 Criteria for Selecting Healthcare Technologies
11:46 Successful Implementation and Change Management
15:06 Future Innovations in Healthcare Workforce Technology
17:51 The Role of AI in Healthcare Technology
21:07 Creating a Positive Employee Experience
23:58 The CIO's Role in Driving Innovation
About Mark:
Mark Hagan is the Chief Information and Digital Officer at AMN Healthcare, overseeing digital strategy, technology R&D, IT infrastructure, data security, and program management. With extensive experience in systems integration, platform rationalization, and enterprise technology execution, he has led innovations and digital transformations across multiple organizations.
Before joining AMN Healthcare, Mark served as CIO and Senior VP of IT at Envision Healthcare, where he spearheaded IT strategies for healthcare services. Earlier, as IT Director at TeleTech, he managed global infrastructure expansions across multiple continents.
Mark also contributes as a director for M&M Properties Colorado LLC and Wonolo, Inc. Passionate about innovation, he has introduced AI, robotic process automation, and natural language processing to enhance operations and drive growth.
Learn more about Mark Hagan: https://www.amnhealthcare.com/about/amn-leadership-team/mark-hagan/
Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (00:00.11)
Welcome to Elevate Care. I'm so excited to welcome Mark Hagan to be here with me today. Mark Hagan is AMN Healthcare's Chief Information and Digital Officer and also my old boss. So I'm really excited to be sitting with Mark today. He's responsible for AMN's overall technology strategy, digital strategy, tech R &D, enterprise information architecture, operations, data security, and a whole host of other things. So I'm super excited to have Mark with us today.
We're going to talk about what advice or how would Mark kind of help other CIOs in the healthcare space think about questions to ask or trends to watch when purchasing healthcare workforce technology. So welcome to the podcast, Mark. Would love if you just started with a little bit of an intro on yourself. Give us some of your background. Liz. Thanks. So my background, originally from Australia and I moved to the US in 2000.
but really moved into the healthcare industry in 2003. I joined American Medical Response working in technology for them, all leading infrastructure and operations. And then in 2006 became the CIO and have been in healthcare ever since, working with various customers across the industry and across the nation.
I've done a lot of technology implementations. I've done a lot of &A and of course a number of engineering applications. My role has been certainly fairly interesting over the years from infrastructure in ambulances and 911 systems to enterprise applications. And then of course, technology in and across the patient care aspects and then in now in workforce with AMN Healthcare.
Great. So, so much knowledge Mark has from the industry. I remember you told me a story once about implementing the first ever, what was it, ambulance tracking system to track the time it would take for the ambulance to get to the hospital. Did I say that right? Yeah, not quite that, but I mean, some of the things that we did in, of course, the ambulance was putting wifi and technology in. So we were able to, you know, sort of monitor and track our ambulances from dispatch to site.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (02:18.094)
and that technology was fairly revolutionary at the time. We kind of called it the office in the ambulance. You know, I've certainly, you know, the ability to be able to get care to a patient immediately in a 911 system is critical, right? Absolutely. And so, you know, the more you can figure out who is the closest ambulance and then getting them safely to it then which hospital is the closest to get them to based on their conditions and their mobility. Right. Well, as we think about, you know,
that example of kind of innovation and evolution of what those systems look like. Now you're in the healthcare workforce technology space, right? So thinking about things like vendor management systems and scheduling solutions and applicant tracking systems. What would you say to other CIOs or even HR professionals, business leaders in the healthcare space around, talk about what's going on in the healthcare workforce technology space. What trends are you seeing? What evolution are you seeing in terms of the tech there? Yeah, I think the whole workforce management
aspect in healthcare has really kicked up, right? I think pre-COVID, much of the investments and the time and energy was spent, of course, on patient systems, know, your electronic medical records, new capabilities around that, population health, etc. Post-COVID, when you look at the investments and the cost of healthcare from a workforce standpoint, it's got a lot more limelight on it. And so
My recommendation for any CIO is first of all, really partner with your HR leaders on what is the workforce strategy and what are they trying to achieve. Workforce in healthcare is a significant cost. So start with the strategy first and then look for and identify where do you have gaps in that strategy. It could be you're still on an old technology platform for your HCM solution.
And therefore, that may be the primary focus for you to actually fix that gap first. That may not be the problem. You may need it maybe in recruiting and, it could be in performance management. It could be in skills management. I think like anything, when it comes to technology, you start with what's the foundation and do you have the foundation correct? In most instances, HCM is a system of record. so of course,
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (04:42.19)
So we want that to be solid. Then we want to think about where's the sort of opportunity for process improvement, productivity improvement. And then where do you think about digital? And so I think one of the big focuses coming forward these days is also creating that digital experience for the employee that you would typically find in B2C where you're trying to find, how do I think about that digital experience for the patient?
that same level of capabilities are now expected by our employees, right? We're all attached to our mobile devices. So how do I do the things that are important to me in my day to day with my organization digitally? so I think put together a very good strategy around getting the core correct, then finding out what are the systems that you can do to improve process that maybe where a VMS might come in.
And then of course, how do I add that digital aspect to it? I think that there's lots of tools and there's so many vendors in this space that you have to decide what's important to you as an organization. Is it a one size fits all approach where maybe I can make that investment with, you know, a work day or an oracle, et cetera, where I can maybe not get best of breed on everything.
But I have one platform, it's all fully integrated, and that makes it easier to implement and support. And I can take a sort of phased approach. So maybe my first phase is HCM, then second phase is applicant tracking, third phase is digital experience. And you can go through those phases at whatever speed you can afford and handle from a change perspective. And in other cases, you might say, well, actually, no, we've done that.
And maybe you're not getting the right results and therefore I'm going to look for a solid HCM solution, but then look for other areas where I can, you know, sort of maybe get better innovation and capabilities. Again, still looking for what more can that other piece of technology do so it's not just doing one thing. I think most CIOs are looking at, whenever they're looking at technology, they want those systems that they're going to require to do more than one thing. Otherwise they're just.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (07:10.456)
potentially adding additional technical debt, additional support challenges as they continue to sort of evolve and those years go past four years from now, five years from now, someone's gonna look back and say, why did we have six of these? Well, it's interesting even thinking about historically maybe why there's six, the point you brought up of bringing a CIO in at the beginning to talk about that overall workforce strategy.
Do you see that as a trend more that CIOs are being brought to the table as part of the initial strategy versus the downstream? Hey, can we just stand up workday and be done with it and have one of those classic sales of, it'll only take six weeks to stand up and then you're stuck with it? Or how is that changing the evolution of that partnership with the CIO and maybe the HR leader? I think that in most cases, not all cases, but in most cases, the CIO has a strong relationship with all of the C-suites.
I think that when it comes to HRS technologies, while a lot of HR leaders these days have got experience in implementing HR technology solutions, what they may not have the foundation of is putting together a workforce technology strategy.
That's where the CIO can partner with the CHRO or the Chief People Officer to really create both a technology and a people strategy, supporting, of course, the CHRO's overall strategy. I think that if you need to build those relationships as part of any sort of good CIO, and of course, that goes across all of the C-Suites. It's not just CHRO.
but you've got to have that. I think if you can build that relationship, I think that the chief HR officer or chief people officer is going to invite you to the table when they're making those decisions. Sometimes it can be a little bit more of a challenge when maybe the vendors are trying to maybe circumvent the CIO, maybe because there's already technology platforms in place.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (09:26.334)
And so some of the different workforce technology vendors will try and use relationships or an alternative approach to sort of push out an older system or a different technology platform. And that can work at times. I think though that most chief people officers and CHROs are sort of savvy to those types of situations and will bring in the CIO.
are sooner into the process because a lot of the times the CIA can also squash it, right? And because, you know, you have to, it takes resources to get implemented. You've also got challenges of integration and more and more these days, those integrations are critical because they're going to stop, they're going to create, you know, sort of efficiencies. And then of course, probably
probably one of the most important ones is security, right? know, anything coming into any healthcare organization needs to be SOC 2 certified. It needs to have those capabilities. It needs to ensure that it meets minimum NIST type standards. And so it's got to get through the security team. so I don't think that you want to bypass that process. And so I think the best thing to do is get ahead of it and get involved in it. I think
if you have the right relationships again, is that you're not just implementing a new piece of technology. Hopefully you're trying to solve a business problem, you're trying to get to an outcome and well, the tech piece is one aspect of it. It's how do we think about the full suite of problems we're trying to solve? Absolutely. There's probably nothing more frustrating to a business leader that selects a technology than getting to the very end.
and the IT person coming in and saying, what is this? And no, this does not fit into our ecosystem. So it happens. It happens all the time. So as we're thinking about our audience and how they don't fall into that same pitfall, we've talked about bringing the CIO up higher in the strategy, right? You started to hit on information security and the importance of that. What other criteria or things should
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (11:46.08)
leaders in the healthcare workforce space be thinking about as they're trying to look for technologies to select? Yeah, I think in my mind, you always start with the outcome, right? What is the outcome I want? And if I was to finish this initiative or if I was to do this, what would good look like? Right. And I would be, you know, very satisfied, very happy with the outcome because I got these results. Right. And so
have the outcome in mind, right? And then I would think the other piece is then really define what are the problems you're trying to solve. Sometimes, you know, the problem we're trying to solve could be solved simply. You know, we don't always have to replace technology to solve a simple problem. know, sometimes, especially when vendors are maybe trying to push their product,
They're trying to sell you on a problem you don't necessarily have. Or they're selling you on a problem that you may have, but you're not going to get the greatest outcome. And you could have got more with the investment that you're making. So to me, it's always start there and then go from there. Right. The outcome is not that you just implemented the technology. outcome is outcome or the business results at the end. Typically not, no. Yeah. know, as you think about
you know, once you get through this buying process and actually thinking about the outcomes, what makes a successful implementation or what have you seen with some of our clients where you say would say, hey, that was a plus implementation or hey, these were some pitfalls that people should watch out for. The first of all, probably the first one that would come to mind is change management, right? Like these days, if you pick a good technology solution,
And there's a lot of them, right? mean, you know, there's, it's gone of the days where, you know, you're buying bad technology. Typically, if you can buy, if you can afford, maybe if you think about Gartner's magic quadrant and you're buying something in, you know, sort of the top quadrant, you're not buying bad technology. What you typically are going to have either one of two situations you have
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (14:08.63)
a poor implementation or you have poor change management. And those are the two things that typically will cause you to have issues and you won't get the outcomes and you won't solve the problems. And I've worked on very many initiatives, different implementations of ERP systems, HCM systems, different workforce management tools.
And in all cases, it's been less the actual technology being problems. It's typically either I won't change my process and therefore the technology needs to suit my process. Well, that doesn't typically happen very often given most technology vendors are, you know, sort of developing software that meets a generalized need as opposed to a very specific need. So it's always would say, what did you say? What was your phrase always?
Good technology doesn't fix bad processes. That's right. So it doesn't. So take the time and really make sure that you are leveraging the technology to improve the outcomes of the business and the business processes. Otherwise, why are you changing it? The only reason you're changing it is because of a security issue or some other technology related issue as opposed to you're looking to drive better outcomes.
I think the second one, of course, is then the implementation partner, right? If you can pick the right partner who has the experience, has done it before, knows how to help you work with change management, I think you'll get the right results. One of the things I've seen in many different organizations, it's happened to me in earlier parts of my career as a CIO, is you're looking at the overall cost.
of the solution that you're about to implement. And the first thing that comes from the budget line when you need to reduce cost of the project is change management. And so what I would say is look for everything else besides change management. I think the other thing that you've got to have is strong governance. And I think a lot of the healthcare organizations with implementations with their EMR systems have learned a lot around good governance structures.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (16:29.038)
So you have to have a strong steering committee that can look at it and make sure that the change is happening and that you've got the buy-in from all of the different leaders. So it's got to start from the top and it's got to get pushed all the way down to the individual teams. I remember in 2017 trying to do a HCM implementation and we had
besides the board and the C-level executives that wanted the initiative done, nobody else wanted it, right? Nobody felt that the decision on the software was the right decision. Wasn't solving any of their problems. Wasn't gonna solve. They didn't choose that product. They didn't choose that implementation teams. And so we had a divide because there was some that did, there was some that didn't. And that divide...
maybe because of cultural issues and other things, cause for a very difficult initiative. Did it get done? Yes. Could it have been done better? Yes. By far. Did we have a lot of problems? Yes. Did we get the outcomes that we needed? No. Did we say we got it done? Yes. Check that box, but the rest, yeah. But on the flip side to that, know, 2020, we implemented a different HCM platform and...
Everybody was certainly part of the solution. Everyone wanted to get it done. Everyone was aligned. We put strong change management leaders in place and they got it done. And it was a very successful implementation and we got the results. So again, those are the two most important things. I think for the CIO's role is you can't...
You can't just set it and forget it, right? It's important that you're connected to any sort of large technology implementation. I think if you put it on the responsibility of, hey, I'm not the business owner, I'm the technology leader, you are not contributing your expertise to ensure a smooth implementation. so be in the game.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (18:44.0)
I feel like the thread that you're weaving is all about, and it's really kind of this is the evolution of the CIO role, right? You and I have talked about this before, where your job is not just get the technology in place and check that box. And your focus is about outcomes and change management and business strategy. And I think it's really interesting to hear that coming straight from a CIO thinking about that success. as we look forward into the future, I think about health care workforce technology. to your point, probably not
a hospital's maybe first priority, right? You're thinking about some of the technologies that directly relate to patient care, right? Your EMR, your EHR, et cetera. As we think about healthcare workforce technology and the trends we're seeing or things you're excited about in the future, what are some new and interesting innovations? I know you mentioned digital experience. Like what do you see happening in that space or even in, you know, around leveraging AI in...
scheduling and vendor management solutions? Like how should you think about or how should we think about what to expect in the future? Yeah, so, you know, I was talking about this to someone not too long ago, right? So I think there's four categories when it comes to workforce management, workforce technology solutions in the human capital space. The first one is automation. Second one is digital. Third is virtual. And then the fourth is artificial intelligence, right? And so when you think about automation,
It's integrate, integrate, integrate. And so, you know, these days, the ability to integrate with various platforms is not that complex. know, when you're dealing with patient systems and HL7, that's complex. When you're dealing with APIs in most of the technology partners that you do today, they can either do it for you or you can do it yourself with a lot of the different technology solutions. So it's about automation, right?
and go on to the days of the swivel chair. So how do we make investments in automation to improve process? The second one is, as I mentioned, digital experience, right? Your employees are so critical. And when I talk about employees, it's not just your full-time employees. In the healthcare settings, you have a lot of full-time employees, but you also have a lot of part-time employees. have a lot of contingent labor, potentially gig labor. And then you've got physicians.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (21:07.788)
Right? And physicians typically aren't necessarily employed by the hospital. They're employed by a physician services group, maybe owned by the hospital. But, you know, how do you think about each one of those personas and create a digital experience for them, whether that's my shifts, you know, when is my shift? How do I change shifts? How do I swap shifts to my payroll? When did I get paid? Am I getting paid? As more and more
Folks want to move to daily pay. They want to know that that's happening. And so how do I create a digital experience like your American Airlines type of situation or your travel velocity, cetera? And so how do I kind of bring that to the table and provide that? I think some more and more emphasis on digital, that experience. think the third thing is virtual, right?
as more and more of the care settings start to become virtual, you're going to have to think about maybe task-based workforce management, right? And so how do I think about some of the virtual capabilities and how does that sort of get integrated into the solutions that we're offering? And then last but not least, of course, is artificial intelligence. And so, you know, there's lots of opportunities for AI.
And that's from the recruiting aspect. How do I use AI as part of my recruiting? You're never going to take the human out of the loop. But there are aspects of artificial intelligence that's going to be able to help you categorize and streamline processes, whether that's in the traditional sense of maybe generative AI or even machine learning and doing predicting. You you mentioned scheduling. How can I use
You know, how does my scheduling bring advanced predictive analytics to the table so I can forecast better? You know, how does those forecasts impact budgets? So I can, I predict what my budgets are going to be and where can I apply that, those capabilities to generative AI to then what we're talking about is agentic AI. So how do we use AI agents to help through the workflow and streamline it? And so you're seeing investments in
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (23:28.608)
Salesforce with agent force, you're seeing investments with Workday. Oracle has got their agents capability. So all of the technology solutions are bringing out AI agents and those types of capabilities. And you want it too. Now, of course, you've got to manage that from a security aspect. So I think that if you kind of focus your strategy pieces in those four areas, you'll do great. Of course, all of those things require solid data.
So you have to have a foundation in place. So if you're starting to say, I want to start implementing advanced AI recruiting capabilities, but you don't have solid data to do that. Or if you're trying to use advanced AI and analytics for predictability on your resources and you don't have data on that, you're just going to fail. And so make sure that, again, coming back to the strategy, how do I make sure I have a core capability in place first and then launch off of that?
Well, and ultimately it seems like, you know, the four themes are at the end of the day, the outcome is to remove administrative tasks from providers and allow them to spend more time at the bedside. Right. I mean, a lot of these are just removing some of that. The extra is removing the barriers to everything. Right. You know, it's it's it's not just getting the patient, the the the workforce to the to the clinic, to the patient on time. It's getting them there in a happy state.
Right? mean, it's like, if you don't, if you have a poor experience coming to work because someone canceled a shift and you all of a sudden got pushed to a shift or, you you needed, you didn't get paid correctly and you're trying to chase down.
the HR service center to find out why you're paid and get corrected. you missed your start that you were supposed to start your new job and your credentialing didn't get finished on time. You didn't have your credential or you needed a credential renewed, right? You shouldn't have been working the shift because your credentials have failed, right? Those are the things that, you know, create an unhappy employee and an unhappy employee typically is going to come across to a patient.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (25:40.206)
Right. And whether they like, they want to or mean to or not, that's, that's going to happen. It's just human nature. And so I think while it's important for us to improve process, it's also about making sure that you're creating a great experience for that team member so that when they show up next to that, that bedside, they're giving, they've got one focus that's patient care. And I think it ties back so nicely to the beginning of this conversation around getting involved in the strategy. You know, the IT department,
and you correct me if wrong, is typically the one that is more on maybe the cutting edge of what's happening in AI, right? Some of the agentic AI trends where maybe the business leader or the HR leader is looking at their process and not thinking about how AI could be inserted to solve it. So I think that that's where that role of the CIO, just pulling it forward, can help actually solution with some of these new tools that you're saying and these new trends. Yeah, I think if you look at CIOs across the
you know, sort of the healthcare industry across many industries, you know, they, their job right now, if there isn't a chief innovation officer or maybe even a chief AI officer, I know those terms are out there. I think the role of the CIO is to educate the C-suite, right? And to get them familiar and comfortable with AI. And it should be important that even
from the CEO down, they're using AI capabilities today. I think that the challenge right now tends to be where's my return on investment? Where's my ROI on AIA? And while we always want a return on investment on everything that we do, I think that at this particular point in time, we look at AI on the desktop is a little bit more like having Microsoft Outlook on the desktop.
Right. I don't know today we do an ROI for you to have email. It's just table sticks. do ROI's on whether you should have Excel. If you did, maybe you wouldn't buy Excel, you'd buy some other product. It's just expected. And I think that as you look at some of the desktop tools like Microsoft Co-Pilot and others, I'm not plugging Microsoft here.
AMN Healthcare Podcasts (28:03.438)
This is not sponsored by Microsoft. sponsored by Microsoft. That, you know, where those type of tools, we need to get into the hands of the people because they will actually leverage the capability and find ways to use it to make their jobs more efficient and more effective. You know, I know how to use Excel better than others because I've put the time and effort in. But there are people who are way better at Excel than me because they use it more and more often than I do. so AI at the desktop level is very similar.
Of course, you've got to have the security in place, right? You've got to make sure that you're not using AI where it's getting access to information that it shouldn't have access to, and you've got to do the due diligence to do that. But you have to be at the forefront of working with, how am I going to get my leaders involved? How am I going to work through that process with them? I think at a minimum, the CIO should also be helping and working with the C-suites or the executives out there to create an AI council.
right? And artificial intelligence council to regulate and govern how they're going to use AI within their organization. And so start there and then go from there. But everybody should be on some sort of training program here at AMN. My push is to continue to train everybody from the C suites all the way down on how we can leverage artificial intelligence, generative AI and some of these capabilities today. Well, Mark, this was a really insightful conversation. I feel like
Whether you're a CIO or a CHRO or anyone in a healthcare organization just thinking about implementing various technologies, there's something to take away. Whether it's from strategy to the importance of information security to thinking about how AI should just be like any desktop application to us. So I really appreciate your insights and want to thank you for joining Elevate Care. Thanks, Liv. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us today on Elevate Care. If you found this episode valuable,
please consider sharing it with a colleague and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. You can learn more about this episode and our show on our website at amnhelfcare.com and follow us on social media to stay updated on new episodes and the ever-changing world of healthcare.