Ep28. Making Patient Access Easier Through Smarter Technology with Kacey Degenhardt
Welcome to another episode of Impact Unfiltered, where we dive deep into honest conversations with leaders creating real change in healthcare and beyond. Host Stuart sits down with Kayce Degenhardt, Vice President of Clinical Applications at Inova Health System, where she is responsible for roughly 600 clinical applications, including the Epic electronic medical record, and leads a team of about 210 people supporting five hospitals and around 300 clinics across the greater Washington, DC area. Kayce's path was anything but conventional: she started at the bedside as an interventional radiology technologist, then transitioned into health IT and spent years working in nearly every corner of the field before stepping into her Inova role in April 2024. A self-described trailblazer who earned a Trailblazer Award last year, she is driven by high expectations for herself and a constant desire to do better.
Together, they explore the moment that reshaped her mission: her mother's cancer diagnosis and the three-week wait for an initial MRI stuck in a scheduling queue, which convinced Kayce that healthcare simply has to do better at patient access. She shares how her team measures the outcome of every meaningful project, from a waitlist tool that cut advanced imaging waits by an average of six days to ambient listening technology that saved physicians over 900 hours in its first months. The conversation moves through what it looks like when technology helps rather than gets in the way, how she led a turnaround at Inova by meeting all 210 of her team members and empowering internal champions, and why she believes culture, not tools, is the real differentiator inside a great organization.
Listeners will come away with a grounded, practical view of healthcare technology led by someone who has stood on both sides of it. Kayce makes the case for reducing clinicians' cognitive load, designing systems that make it easy to do the right thing, and adopting AI safely with real guardrails as the industry works to govern it responsibly. She looks ahead to a future of faster, more accessible care, offers heartfelt advice to her younger self about staying true to who you are, and reminds every leader that healthcare is ultimately about taking care of people, patients and staff alike. Tune in for an honest, forward-looking conversation about making technology serve the people who deliver care.
1. Introduction to Impact Unfiltered and Episode Overview
Real conversations with leaders driving change in healthcare, business, and community
Host Stuart welcomes guest Kayce Degenhardt to the show
Setting the themes: patient access, clinician time, culture, and the safe adoption of AI in healthcare
2. Meet Kayce Degenhardt: From Interventional Radiology to Health IT Leadership
Began her career clinically, working in interventional radiology for a number of years
Transitioned into IT and spent years across nearly every area of healthcare technology
Started at Inova in April 2024 as Vice President of Clinical Applications
Oversees about 600 applications, including the Epic electronic medical record, and leads a team of roughly 210 people
Inova spans five hospitals and about 300 clinics, serving the greater Washington, DC area
3. Blazing a New Trail
Took a completely different direction from clinical work into health IT and earned a Trailblazer Award last year
Notes that school and college counselors rarely tell students these career paths even exist
Has considered herself a trailblazer since day one, always wanting to do and be better
Is highly self-critical, holds high expectations, and actively seeks feedback
4. Her Why: A Mother's Cancer Journey and Easier Patient Access
Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and got caught in the gaps of the healthcare system
An initial MRI sat in a scheduling queue, forcing a three-week wait that crystallized the need to do better
Believes healthcare is one of the most difficult industries to navigate, with too many regulations
Contrasts booking a flight or a whole vacation from your phone with how hard it is to schedule a doctor's visit
Her why is making patient access easier, and she believes that is where the industry needs to focus
5. Defining Impact: Measuring the Outcome of Every Project
Asks her team to quantify the outcome of every medium-to-large project that takes more than 20 hours
The questions: how did we impact healthcare, save clinician time, or make a dent, and what did we save
Points to a waitlist tool that texts opted-in patients an earlier slot whenever someone cancels
That functionality saved an average of six days for advanced imaging such as MRI and CT
Serving the population that way is the kind of impact that gives her goosebumps
6. When Technology Helps Instead of Getting in the Way
Monitors clinician time, including pajama time, the hours doctors spend charting outside their 8-to-5
Wants clinicians to finish their work in the office and in front of patients, then go home for dinner with family
Confirms most physicians spend significant time working after hours
Highlights ambient listening, where AI captures the doctor-patient conversation, documents the chart, and places orders for review and sign-off
In its first couple of months, ambient listening saved physicians over 900 hours
7. Reducing Cognitive Load with Generative AI
Inova is using mostly generative AI to reduce clinicians' cognitive load
Targets quick, administrative tasks so staff have brain space to sit with patients and be more creative
Aims to reduce clicks, typing, and note length wherever the work does not require deep thought
Frames technology as a way to free people up for the work that actually needs their judgment
8. From Film to Digital: Rebalancing Technology's Role
Lived the film-to-digital transition in X-ray school, developing film in a darkroom one year and going fully digital the next
Believes the pendulum has swung too far, to the point where technology can become a burden
Argues the field needs to find a better balance between technology and care
Sees this as a challenge the country can come together to fix rather than something each organization solves alone
9. Leading a Turnaround: Assess the Team First
Started at Inova by assessing her own team, on the principle that you cannot pour from an empty cup
Met individually with all 210 team members in fifteen-minute sessions, since you cannot move a ship that size by talking to only a handful of people
Identified common barriers and made small changes immediately, cutting unnecessary documentation and steps
Focused the first year on getting her team healthy internally, then shifted to serving the wider organization
10. Finding and Empowering Internal Champions
Believes no change happens without influential, passionate people on the team
Identifies change agents by asking what people did before this role and what they want to do next
Uses open, honest conversations to surface where someone's real passion and energy live
Empowers those champions to lead projects and pursue certifications, promising her support
Wants a true open-door policy in a remote workforce while still respecting the chain of command
11. Reading the Room: Her Superpower and the Power of Relationships
Describes her superpower as reading the room and building relationships from intangible feelings
Relies heavily on intuition and considers relationships deeply important
Notes it can be lonelier at the top, so a leader has to be careful
Credits a question from someone she admires, asked during an interview, for making her think about her own superpower
12. Why Culture Is the Real Differentiator
Observes that culture was once misunderstood and devalued, dismissed as just showing up to do your job
Argues the real differentiator for organizations is how people think about and treat one another, not the playbooks or tools
Says Inova's CEO is deliberate about culture, focusing on it in leadership meetings and on psychological safety
Acknowledges culture is harder to manage across an organization of roughly 20,000 to 30,000 employees, but sees a large workforce as an opportunity to multiply impact
13. Driving Frontline Adoption: Informatics Partners and the Team Summit
Comes with receipts: Inova's EHR was named the second-best by its nurses in the past year
Credits informatics partners, clinicians who also understand technology, as the secret-sauce liaisons between the tech and clinical worlds
Involves those partners from the beginning to help drive clinical decisions
Hosted a full-day summit with two rooms of fifteen-minute sessions where analysts and stakeholders showcased outcomes
Her team ran an expo of their work and the CEO attended, and the summit is returning this year to keep driving engagement
14. Designing to Make the Right Thing Easy, and Governing AI Safely
Designs software so it is easy to do the right thing and delivers a solution rather than just another field
Pushes her team to ask what problem a request is actually trying to solve, since one-off fields multiply into clutter and workarounds that cause bigger problems
Notes the biggest source of hesitancy in the industry right now is fear around AI
Says organizations are working out how to govern AI ethically, manage drift and hallucinations, and keep a genuine human in the loop rather than rubber-stamping results
Believes AI is coming whether the field wants it or not, so the priority is adopting it safely with real guardrails
15. Looking Ahead, Advice, and Where to Connect
Is excited that shedding administrative burdens will free time and energy for more innovative work and faster care
Sees virtual visits and telehealth as optional tools that expand access, especially given social drivers of health like transportation barriers
Is watching new AI capabilities, including an AI build assistant from Inova's EHR that helps analysts keep pace with thousands of requests
Advises her younger self to stay true to herself, be a good human, and remember healthcare is about taking care of both patients and people
Invites listeners to follow and reach out to her on LinkedIn, where she keeps up with her messages
