In this episode of The Chief Healthcare Officer, Dr. Fatih Mehmet Gül speaks with Nancy Wright, VP of Commercial Services and Digital Platforms at GE HealthCare, about what it really takes to make healthcare technology work for people.
Nancy brings a unique operations-led perspective to commercial healthcare transformation, helping health systems think beyond equipment and technology procurement. Together, Dr. Fatih and Nancy explore why the future of healthcare is not simply about buying better technology, but about redesigning care around clinicians, patients, workflows, safety and long-term system resilience.
The conversation covers some of the most urgent questions facing healthcare leaders today: workforce shortages, digital transformation, cybersecurity, predictive maintenance, AI-enabled asset management, rural and ambulatory care, cultural safety, and the future role of hospitals.
Technology is not the real bottleneck in healthcare transformation; the harder challenge is leadership, imagination and redesigning care around people.
Workforce shortages are one of the most urgent pressures facing healthcare systems globally, making smarter use of technology and workflows essential.
Health systems often struggle not because clinicians are failing, but because the infrastructure around them is fragmented, outdated and overly siloed.
Commercial healthcare partnerships should not start with selling equipment or technology; they should start with understanding what clinicians, departments and communities actually need.
Digital transformation should begin with community needs, future demand, demographic shifts and care model planning, not with an EMR change or a technology purchase.
Healthcare must remain conservative in patient care, but it cannot remain conservative in the way it manages operations, infrastructure, supply chains, cybersecurity and digital ecosystems.
The biggest opportunities for improvement often sit in the non-clinical ecosystem that supports care delivery.
Cybersecurity should be treated as a patient safety issue, not just a technical IT cost.
Cybersecurity must be embedded into every technology decision, vendor assessment and network design rather than added later as a bolt-on.
Predictive maintenance is a powerful example of “invisible technology” because patients may never see it, but they immediately feel the consequences when critical equipment fails.
Health systems often focus on predictive maintenance for major imaging systems, but significant value is also hidden in everyday assets such as pumps, monitors, ventilators and anesthesia equipment.
AI can help biomedical and operations teams move from predictive maintenance to prescriptive maintenance, prioritising what needs attention first across thousands of assets.
Rural care, remote monitoring, telemedicine, wearables and hospital-at-home models are becoming more important because technology can now help close gaps of distance and time.
Ambulatory care centres can help relieve pressure on acute hospitals, but only when they are integrated into the wider hospital and community ecosystem.
Rehab centres, long-term care facilities and home health services need stronger digital integration with hospitals to support continuity of care.
Digital transformation fails when it is treated as an IT project or delegated to one department. Successful transformation requires cultural safety, where staff feel safe to say what is not working without fear of punishment.
Transformation is not a 12-month project; it is a long-term cultural shift that becomes part of how an organisation works.
The hospitals of the future will still exist, but they may become more like centres of excellence, innovation hubs and command centres for care delivered across the community.
By 2035, every patient may have a digital twin or “digital carbon copy” that helps clinicians understand their health in a more data-backed and proactive way.
The future of healthcare will depend on using data and technology to deliver more personalised, proactive and human-centred care.
