Why Technology Alignment Is Becoming Healthcare’s Unspoken Challenge

This podcast was originally recorded on Chief Healthcare Executive “How health systems can get the most out of technology investments.”

In a conversation that moved quickly from governance to AI to small‑hospital survival strategies, Peyman Zand, Chief Strategy Officer at CereCore, offered a rare inside look at the real obstacles that keep hospitals from getting value out of their technology investments.

Below are the key takeaways from the conversation and why they matter for leaders trying to stretch every dollar, reduce complexity, and deliver meaningful change.

1. Technology Priorities Don’t Exist in a Vacuum; They Must Serve Strategy

Zand sees a recurring pattern inside many hospitals: technology requests are made because key leaders want them, not because they map to a system’s strategic objectives.

Instead, Zand suggests a rigorous, organization‑wide framework. Define enterprise attributes that are critical for where your organization is headed, which might include patient safety or provider satisfaction. While doing this, it is important to rate priorities realistically, not everything can be “high priority.”

Leaders must agree on a matrix that ranks:

• Alignment of Objectives (X‑axis)
• Ability to execute (Y‑axis)
• Application Rationalization – Critical, Complex, and Absolutely Attainable
• Rationalization to Archiving: Make the Right Data Move Now
• The Multi-Million Dollar Transformation Opportunity Healthcare Loves to Hate: Application Rationalization
• Fractional CIOs
• Remote technical teams
• Hosted EHR services
• Shared staffing models

This process, Zand emphasizes, takes 6–12 months of collaborative work, not the few weeks before a budget cycle. When systems stick to this discipline, it prevents the “surprises” often seen in budget meetings, where leaders are shocked that their preferred project doesn’t rank as high as they hoped.

Having a partner throughout this journey is essential. Organizations benefit from experienced IT advisors who can help facilitate throughout this collaborative period. CereCore’s strategic IT advisory services are designed to support this exact work; aligning technology investments to mission, reducing risk, and ensuring that priorities are grounded in both strategy and operational reality.

CereCore also helps in assessing existing application portfolios, keeping ongoing system costs with strategic priorities. Application rationalization ensures that limited budgets and resources are focused on what truly matters. Check out our resources to learn more:

2. CIOs and CFOs Can–and Must–Be Strategic Partners

Zand explains that CIOs often introduce new technology while simultaneously being constrained by limited budgets and organizational caution. When new capabilities emerge, such as AI, healthcare organizations frequently respond by slowing or stopping adoption because governance and solutions are not yet clear. However, this approach may not be effective.

Executive teams should first agree on a shared set of attributes or criteria for evaluating technology initiatives. Those criteria should then be communicated throughout the organization. When employees understand what leadership will support and approve, fewer misaligned requests reach IT, and the requests that do surface are more likely to reflect organizational priorities.

Zand also describes the importance of funding strategies beyond internal budgets. He shared an example of a hospital system CEO who collaborated with leadership to identify external funding sources, including cooperative buying organizations and government grants. By using these mechanisms, the system was able to implement technology across multiple hospitals rather than a single site, reducing implementation, maintenance, and staffing costs.

What does this partnership look like in a rural healthcare environment?

The CIO–CFO partnership becomes even more critical in rural healthcare environments, where limited resources, staffing constraints, and razor-thin margins demand sharper prioritization and creative funding strategies. In these settings, technology decisions are never just IT decisions; they are strategic investments that directly impact financial stability, compliance, and access to care.

As explored in our blog, What Now? Rural Health's IT Prerequisites And Prep Work Get Their Time To Shine, rural hospitals are increasingly finding success by aligning technology governance with financial strategy. When CIOs and CFOs operate from a shared set of priorities, organizations are better positioned to move quickly without overextending their budgets.

That same collaboration also opens the door to funding models beyond traditional capital planning. Rural organizations, in particular, are leveraging government grants, cooperative buying structures, and shared services to modernize infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity, and improve operational efficiency. These approaches echo Zand’s perspective: when executive leaders align around clear evaluation criteria and jointly explore alternative funding sources, technology adoption accelerates while costs and risk decline.

Perhaps most importantly, rural healthcare demonstrates that strategic partnership doesn’t end with the executive team. Purpose-built collaborations, such as fractional cybersecurity leadership and targeted technology assessments, allow CIOs and CFOs to extend their capabilities without adding full-time overhead. The result is stronger governance, improved financial performance, and a more resilient IT foundation.

3. AI Is Here. Healthcare Needs Smarter Adoption, Not More Bans

Many health systems have responded to generative AI by banning tools until governance is in place. A reaction Zand understands but sees as limiting.

While he acknowledges concerns around patient safety and inaccurate information, Zand is clear that he is not advocating AI for clinical decision‑making. Instead, he points to practical, non‑clinical uses such as administrative work and government reporting, including vaccine data submissions, where AI and automation can reduce operating costs.

4. Smaller Hospitals Shouldn’t Have to Do It Alone

Many rural and community hospitals struggle to recruit CIOs, CISOs, and specialized IT staff. For these organizations, Zand recommends exploring fractional leadership and outsourced operational models.

CereCore provides:

This approach recreates the capabilities of a large health system for smaller hospitals without requiring them to build everything internally. He says, “don’t try to solve everything on your own...you're going to frustrate yourself, and you're just probably going to spend more money than you need to.”

5. The Pandemic Changed Mindsets, Partnership Is the New Normal

The COVID‑19 era shifted how systems think about independence versus collaboration, Zand explained. Telehealth expansion, remote IT work, and shared infrastructure suddenly became normal and necessary.

Hospitals that once resisted partnerships for fear of losing autonomy now see the benefits of working together without needing to merge or be acquired. Zand believes this shift is permanent and healthy. “We’re becoming connected communities,” he says. “Healthcare organizations are cooperating more than they’re competing.”

One rapidly growing urgent care organization, operating hundreds of sites through partnerships with more than a dozen health systems, embraced this collaborative model to support expansion without sacrificing flexibility. By standardizing governance, modernizing identity management, and enabling virtual behavioral health services across partners, the organization strengthened security, improved scalability, and significantly increased patient access nationwide, all without merging systems or limiting local control. Read the full story to see CereCore at work.

6. Don’t Ignore Revenue Cycle and Cybersecurity, They’re High-ROI Opportunities

Zand offered a final recommendation: hospitals are leaving money on the table. He says, “...it is technology automation and AI can actually solve a lot of your revenue shortages and revenue.”

CereCore can help close the revenue cycle gaps holding your organization back from thriving. Move from assessment to meaningful progress, learn more about our revenue cycle services.

Likewise, cybersecurity risk continues to rise, and modern tools can help mitigate threats more proactively. CereCore’s cybersecurity advisory services provide the expertise needed to prepare, protect, and defend against cybersecurity risks.

Both areas, he argues, offer fast ROI and should be prioritized alongside clinical and operational initiatives.

Final Thoughts

The conversation with Zand underscored a critical truth: healthcare doesn’t have a technology problem; it has an alignment problem.

When strategy, governance, funding, and execution aren’t synced, even “good” IT investments fall short. But when systems align their objectives, embrace creative partnerships, and leverage AI thoughtfully, they can stretch resources further and deliver better care.

This is where choosing the right Health IT partner matters. Working with a trusted, full-service IT partner like CereCore can help organizations move faster, reduce risk, and avoid building fragmented solutions internally.

Zand’s advice lands at the right moment: As margins tighten and complexity rises, organizations that treat IT as a strategic asset, not an isolated function, will be the ones that thrive.