The Exec: Anika Gardenhire Talks Transformation at Ardent Health

The Nashville-based health system’s new chief digital & transformation officer says it’s her goal to create lasting relationships between the health system and its patients. And that begins with helping providers.

Ask Anika Gardenhire about transformation, and she’ll bring up a concept that has only recently entered the healthcare lexicon: The idea of stickiness.

“[My] priorities are really building experiences for all of our different [patients] and making those experiences extremely sticky,” says Gardenhire, RN, CHCIO,  Ardent Health’s new chief digital & transformation officer.  And her goal, she says, is to “be able to have the type of trusted relationship across the [patient’s journey].”

That idea of stickiness, of enticing a consumer to continue to visit Ardent Health and develop loyalty to the Nashville-based 30-hospital for-profit network, is quickly becoming a catchphrase for many healthcare organizations these days. No longer can a hospital sit back and wait for patients for waltz through the front door; hospital leaders need to be proactive, reaching out to people and meeting them where they need or want their care, creating a sense of partnership.

It's not an easy path to follow at a time when healthcare services can be accessed via telehealth networks, or by visiting retail health centers, or even ordered through Amazon, but that’s the nature of consumer-focused care. And health systems and hospitals are finding they have to embrace new ideas like stickiness to create the relationships they need to survive.

Gardenhire, who became Ardent Health’s first chief digital and information officer in 2023, had “information” replaced with “transformation” in her title this past March. The title change reflects a shift in the healthcare narrative toward value-based care, along with the idea that the industry needs to transform itself to meet consumer preferences.

That means, she says, making a connection with the consumer.

“I don’t think there will be a time where a mom looks through the legs and sees a robot delivering the baby,” she says. “That’s always a very human experience. But how do you surround the obstetrician with the right data and the right tools and the removal of tasks that don’t require the very unique art of building a human-to-human connection? Get all of those things out of the way of that connection happening.”

Anika Gardenhire, chief digital & transformation officer at Ardent Health. Photo courtesy Ardent Health.

That’s where the “digital” part of her title comes in. Gardenhire, who spent time as the AVP of digital transformation at Intermountain Healthcare and chief digital officer and chief customer experience officer at Centene before coming to Ardent Health, sees digital health technology as the framework around which the healthcare experience is created. That means giving both patient and provider the technology they need to make the encounter better, from online scheduling to remote monitoring to AI tools that reduce administrative tasks on both ends and smooth out clinical care.

This doesn’t mean using any and all technology at one’s disposal. Gardenhire says Ardent Health’s technology strategy has to be very purposeful and directed.

“If we want healthcare to be a very human experience, then you probably can’t put a lot of shiny baubles between the human connection,” she says. “You need to be thinking very intentionally about how you put technology in the background and … promote human connection.”

For example, Gardenhire says she’s fascinated by what she calls “calm technologies.” They’re the tools that sit in the background, quietly gathering and assessing data (such as the doctor-patient conversation) and enriching care management without standing between the doctor and patient or disrupting the experience.

She also feels that innovation and transformation should have a destination, rather than being a continuous, even incremental, process.

“Sometimes we can get into a place where we’re trickling in transformation and nobody actually knows when to click into it,” she says. “I think that’s really dangerous, especially in our clinical spaces. [We need to] be very clear about this transformation. This is the ‘from’ and the ‘to,’ and we won’t be ‘ing’ing forever.”

In other words, tell your clinicians what you’re doing, and give them ownership over the transformation process.

“At the end of the day it has to be clinician-led transformation,” she says.

Gardenhire sees a lot of opportunities for healthcare innovation, from the supply chain to the hospital room of tomorrow. She anticipates more clinical uses for consumer tech, especially is the industry develops smaller, lighter and more nimble tools that can reliable and securely capture data. And as telehealth and virtual care gather momentum, the idea of transporting a patient from one hospital to another will become as quaint as the rotary phone.

In fact, Gardenhire sees the home as the next big care site, enhanced with technology that can gather daily information, capture social determinants of health, interact with users and connect with care providers.

There will come a time, she says, “when you can actually see that person at home, surrounded by the things they need to care for them and [for them to] manage their chronic diseases, but which allows them to still move through their house and walk their dog down the street, all while they’re monitoring themselves. Or [you’ll have technology] that allows a child with asthma to be monitored during the night and not have to wake up because we can raise the humidity in the room or release a nebulizer without sleep being disrupted.”

“When you imagine all of those things coming together that we’ve built out – not only the applications and not only the cool technology but also the infrastructure,” she concludes. “I think it’s a really awesome time to be in this space.”