The 229 Podcast

February 12, 2026: Most health systems run Epic downtimes at 3 AM when the hospital is slowest. Jim Feen, SVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Southcoast Health, did the opposite. He intentionally took Epic offline at 10 AM on a Wednesday morning without warning staff. Jim reveals why 100% of surveyed leadership wanted to repeat the exercise, how he consolidated 37 separate call centers into a single unified operation, and what he learned from spending a decade at MEDITECH before leading an Epic migration. This conversation challenges everything you thought you knew about downtime planning, business continuity, and building corporate muscle memory for the crises you can't predict.
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Key Points:
06:07 The Call Center Transformation
11:41 Epic Downtime During Business Hours
16:16 AI in Healthcare: Managing Innovations
21:16 Project Management and DevOps at South Coast Health
26:25 Closing Thoughts and Super Bowl Predictions

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Bill Russell, Drex DeFord, and Sarah Richardson dissect J.P. Morgan healthcare presentations to reveal what's really being asked of technology leaders in 2026. The era of transformation talk is over; executives want friction reduced, margins improved, and growth enabled. Bill shares insights from CMIO conversations showing leaders moving beyond EHR optimization to solve real business challenges around patient access and clinical workflows. Drex and Sarah debate whether the shift toward operational excellence means CIOs should prepare to run pharmacy and lab departments next.
Key Points:
04:26 Challenges and Opportunities in Healthcare IT
10:17 Cybersecurity and Operational Focus
17:17 EHR Systems and Operational Efficiency
23:11 Hostage Crisis and Final Thoughts
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February 5, 2026: Jennifer Goldman, VP, CMIO, and Chief of Primary Care at Memorial Healthcare System, reveals why most patient access initiatives fail before they start. The problem isn't technology; it's template management, physician engagement, and clinical escalation workflows that non-clinical call centers can't navigate. Jennifer shares how Memorial added 10,000 same-day access visits by standardizing primary care templates and creating bi-directional governance forums. But the real challenge? Specialty care operates differently, requiring clinical escalation tools and trust-building between operations teams and centralized scheduling. This conversation exposes the hidden operational complexities that determine whether access innovation succeeds or becomes another failed IT project.
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Key Points:
01:07 Challenges in Patient Access
05:28 The Evolving Role of the CMIO
06:57 Success Stories and Innovations

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February 4, 2026: Mark Scruggs, President and COO of SureTest, reveals why healthcare organizations are achieving 80% reductions in testing time and why renewal rates are unprecedented. Mark discusses how automated testing for EHR upgrades and implementations delivers ROI within six to nine months, eliminates over 20,000 hours of manual work annually, and has created what KLAS calls the only true turnkey managed testing service in healthcare. From Epic and Cerner to UKG and ERP systems, discover why organizations that automate testing never want their old processes back.
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Key Points:
02:23 ROI and Client Success Stories
06:10 AI in Healthcare Testing
08:15 Wine Talk and Personal Stories

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February 2, 2026: Are health systems being sidelined from healthcare's innovation revolution? Jason Rose, CEO of Clearsense, joins This Week Health fresh from the J.P. Morgan Conference to challenge the narrative that providers are absent from innovation discussions. Jason reveals what really happened inside JPM's exclusive health system presentations, from CEOs prioritizing AI transformation to CFOs rising as the new power players driving technology strategy. The conversation explores why app rationalization remains the unglamorous financial lever that unlocks innovation budgets, and why simplification might be healthcare's most underrated competitive advantage in 2026.
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Key Points:
02:20 JPM Conference Insights
07:07 CEO and CFO Perspectives
13:54 Application Rationalization Challenges
22:40 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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