Robert Sumter shared how Ascension is improving emergency department access by treating the ED as the health system’s front door and redesigning workflows around speed, capacity, and patient movement. His presentation explored the operational realities behind long wait times, overcrowding, patients leaving without treatment, staff burnout, and the financial impact of ED throughput — showing how process improvement can help support clinical teams while increasing capacity and improving the patient experience.

Yarrow McConnell shared how MultiCare Cancer Institute is improving access to oncology care across a broad regional footprint, including rural communities where patients may live hours away from the nearest cancer center. His presentation connected referral management, nurse navigation, virtual care, surgical access, patient retention, and downstream oncology services — showing how better access and coordination can reduce leakage, decrease no-shows and cancellations, and support both patient outcomes and health system sustainability. 

Reshma Gupta shared lessons from UC Davis Health’s work in population health, chronic condition management, and remote monitoring, with a focus on what makes digital health programs succeed or fail. She explained why pilots often fall short when strategy, target populations, workflows, billing, leadership alignment, and long-term sustainability are not clearly defined — and how care at home, AI, remote monitoring, and clinical team input can come together to improve outcomes, access, and the experience of care teams and patients at scale.

Albert Vilarin shared how Nuvance Health is using a systemwide approach to improve care delivery through unified governance, workflow redesign, automation, AI, language access, and clinical process improvement. His presentation highlighted the importance of identifying friction points across the patient journey, embedding technology inside clinical workflows, reducing variability across hospitals, and using data to guide improvements that support patients, clinicians, and operational performance.