Shaping the Future of Clinical Work: Reimagining the Joy of Practice and AI-Enabled HEALTHCARE
Prior to its acquisition by Oracle Health, Cerner began exploring how to evolve beyond its core electronic health record (EHR) business and expand into strategic consulting services for health systems. This shift was driven by growing systemic challenges across healthcare, including pandemic-induced clinician burnout, operational strain, and increasing complexity in care delivery, creating an opportunity for Cerner to play a more strategic role with its customers. The project centered on two key focus areas identified by the Cerner team: bringing back the joy of practice for clinicians and exploring how AI could meaningfully support their day-to-day work.New Consulting offerings for Cerner
SKILLS & SUbject Matter
Qualitative Research • Research Operations • AI Strategy
Journey Mapping • Stakeholder Alignment • WORKSHOP DESIGN
overview
As the program manager, I led the effort to define a disruptive yet actionable set of strategic consulting offerings to help Cerner expand beyond its role as an EHR provider and become a more strategic partner to health systems. The work addressed urgent, real-world challenges facing clinicians and hospital leaders, while remaining grounded in Cerner’s existing capabilities, regulatory environment, and business model.
To do this, I led a team of 5 through qualitative research with nearly 30 clinicians and hospital administrators across 7 U.S. hospital systems. From here we synthesized the insights into clear opportunity spaces and design directives that informed concept generation and prioritization, while balancing those insights with Cerner’s operational realities. This work shaped how AI-enabled consulting services could meaningfully support clinicians, reduce friction in daily workflows, and help bring back the joy of practice
My work included:
Leading the end-to-end program to define Cerner’s strategic consulting offerings, aligning research, concept development, and executive decision-making across cross-functional teams
Owning research operations, including planning, coordination, and execution of qualitative research with clinicians and hospital administrators across seven U.S. health systems
Driving synthesis of research findings into actionable insights, opportunity spaces, and design directives to guide concept development
Leading the co-creation and refinement of AI-enabled consulting concepts aligned with clinician needs, Cerner’s capabilities, and healthcare regulatory constraints
Facilitating leadership workshops to evaluate and prioritize concepts based on feasibility, impact, and implementation readiness
Developing clinician journey maps grounded in research to identify high-impact moments and anchor offerings to real clinical workflows
Defining near-term MVP strategies alongside longer-term vision to support Cerner’s entry into strategic, AI-enabled consulting services
This work clarified how Cerner could evolve from an EHR provider into a more strategic partner for health systems by addressing the human and operational realities of clinical work. By grounding new consulting offerings in clinician needs while thoughtfully applying AI to reduce friction and cognitive load, the initiative defined a credible, differentiated path for Cerner to support the joy of practice and deliver meaningful impact across healthcare organizations.