Tiffany Laurenz, Vice President of IT Delivery Operations at McLaren Health Care, has spent nearly 24 years working in healthcare IT. Her career spans small software companies, global IT service firms, and large provider organizations, giving her a broad perspective on what it takes to deliver reliable, secure technology in support of patient care.
On this episode of The CereCore Podcast, Tiffany joined host Phil Sobol to talk about her career journey, what IT delivery looks like across a complex health system, and how healthcare IT leaders can balance modernization, cybersecurity, financial pressure, and patient expectations while ensuring clinicians have dependable day‑to‑day IT support.
Listen to the full episode for practical leadership insights, real-world examples from a rapidly growing health system, and a thoughtful reminder of why healthcare IT work matters.
Tiffany didn’t plan on a career in healthcare IT. She discovered it while finishing her degree, working for a small Michigan-based software development company that built physician billing software. Because the company was small, she was exposed to nearly every function, from billing and customer support to testing and training.
As she shared on the podcast, “I kind of stumbled into the world of healthcare IT… I kind of did everything.”
That breadth of experience gave her a strong foundation in how healthcare technology actually functions day to day. It was also through this role that she first worked with McLaren Health Care, a relationship that eventually brought her into the organization.
Today, Tiffany oversees IT delivery across more than 13 hospitals and numerous outpatient facilities. Supporting such a large and diverse environment requires speed, coordination, and constant communication.
She described the reality candidly. “It is a very large organization, and we move rapidly at McLaren.”
Her teams span infrastructure and delivery operations and work closely with applications, the PMO, and the frontline support functions that clinicians rely on every day. McLaren also embeds IT liaisons at major hospitals to ensure local needs are understood and reflected in enterprise planning, helping bridge the gap between technology teams and hospital leadership.
Although she leads highly technical teams, Tiffany does not come from a technical background. Instead, she brings a business perspective that she believes strengthens her leadership.
She explained that her real value lies in communication and problem solving, particularly when it comes to bridging discussions between technical teams and executive leadership. In healthcare IT, that translation is critical for alignment, trust, and decision making.
One area Tiffany emphasized as vital to healthcare operations is dependable IT support, particularly the service desk. For clinicians, IT support is often the most visible representation of the IT organization and the difference between seamless care delivery and unnecessary frustration.
As McLaren evaluated how to best support its clinicians and staff, Tiffany explained that the organization carefully considered whether to build service desk capabilities internally or partner with a provider that truly understood healthcare workflows.
Through that process, McLaren recognized the value of working with a partner that already had deep healthcare experience and proven service desk operations, allowing internal teams to stay focused on broader strategic and operational priorities.
For Tiffany, success in this area comes down to trust, transparency, and accountability in day‑to‑day service delivery, especially when issues arise and need to be resolved quickly for clinical teams.
McLaren has taken different approaches to outsourcing and managed services over the years, ultimately settling into a hybrid model. Through those experiences, Tiffany has learned that accountability always stays with the provider organization.
She also stressed the importance of transparency in vendor relationships, noting that honest conversations, even when the answer is no, build trust and long-term success. In healthcare IT, that trust is essential when partners are supporting clinicians and patient‑facing systems around the clock.
Recognized as a finalist in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, Tiffany credits strong leadership to integrity, consistency, and leading by example. Fast decision making is necessary in healthcare, but so is the ability to learn, course correct and keep moving forward.
Most importantly, she remains grounded in healthcare’s mission and the reason so many professionals choose this field. Technology may sit behind the scenes, but its impact on clinicians and patients is very real.
Tiffany is clear about what ultimately drives IT priorities at McLaren: patients.
She emphasized that patient expectations have changed, especially around access to information and digital tools. Solutions like the patient portal are no longer optional. They are essential to meeting patient needs while maintaining trust and safety.
For other healthcare IT leaders navigating modernization, workforce challenges, and rising expectations, Tiffany offered a grounded perspective: focus less on chasing the newest technology and more on ensuring stability, reliability, and alignment with real business and clinical needs.
Knowing where to invest, where to standardize, and where to rely on strong IT support partnerships has been key to McLaren’s approach.
Listen to the full episode of The CereCore Podcast to hear Tiffany Laurenz share more about healthcare IT delivery, cybersecurity realities, leadership, and keeping patient care at the center of every decision.