Closing the gap: How Children’s Mercy aligns technology and operations

With approximately 300,000 kids in its ecosystem, Children’s Mercy has many reasons to pursue transformation – and get it right. The children’s health system does much more than manage full-risk for those 18 and under. Alongside medical care, the hospital offers social work, music therapy, and volunteer services, which keep patients engaged but add complexity to the health system’s ecosystem. 

At the heart of its current transformation to modernize operations is Dave Henriksen, newly appointed Chief Transformation Officer and respected industry leader. His approach is unconventional yet practical, turning the unknown into an opportunity to improve experiences for patients and staff alike. 

Callout: “Don’t be afraid of the word transform,” Henriksen says. “Transforming is simply taking something in its current state today and, with feedback from patients and team members, figuring out how we make it better than it was previously.”

Henriksen recently sat down with Notable's head of marketing communications, Amanda Hundt, to discuss how he’s aligning IT and operations beyond traditional KPIs.

Driving transformation from within

Henriksen began the organization’s transformation journey by breaking down departmental silos. Seeing how operations and IT operated in parallel tracts, Henriksen saw an opportunity to align objectives. He recognized that departmental purposes are not mutually exclusive. 

“Transformation meant changing the dynamic, starting with the reporting hierarchy. Now, IT and operations report to the same leader. Everyone sits at the same table during weekly meetings, creating a true sense of one team.”

A new concept, OKRs (objectives and key results), helps identify and define the work that needs to be done, along with clear measures of success. From there, Henriksen shares how the organization aligns those OKRs with KPIs to track progress.

“What many organizations miss is agreeing on how they’ll get there, what they will actually do together to reach goals, and maintaining visibility across teams. Without that alignment, quality might chase a goal one way, while operations pursue another.”

What’s the secret to getting teams on board? Visibility and teamwork. 

Full speed ahead: The transformation train departs

Henriksen explained his innovative approach to transformation using what he calls “trains.” 

“At Children’s Mercy, we divided our products into trains to simplify how we think about and organize the work,” he said. “For example, Ambulatory represents the medical group, while Facilities and Inpatient roll up under our CNO. We also have regional and research leaders supporting the train.”

Each leader acts as a conductor, setting their OKRs to align with broader KPIs. Shared services are responsible for understanding what’s on each train and ensuring the work moves forward.

“As a conductor, I have decision rights for the Ambulatory train; I don’t need c-suite approval,” Henriksen said. “That autonomy allows us to act quickly, but it also comes with accountability.”

Projects are prioritized “above the line” when they’re resourced and ready to move forward, while those “below the line” wait for capacity or trade-offs. “If I want to add something new, I either remove another task, add resources, or negotiate with other conductors,” he explained.

This structure provides visibility into true bottlenecks and helps quantify resource gaps. Instead of saying, “We’re burned out,” teams can now identify exactly what’s missing and what it would take to get the work done.

Transforming across the organization 

Is the new approach working? Henriksen pointed to several major initiatives already underway at Children’s Mercy.

“We have an Epic go-live happening, including new phone systems and a new ERP, and we’re swapping our entire hospital from PCs to Apple Macs,” he said. “And then I show up and say, ‘Hey, by the way, we probably need more AI and automation.’”

That’s when his team revisited the conversation around enablement. Where can new capabilities realistically fit within existing priorities? 

“We started going through what was above the line and what’s below it,” he explained. “Pretty quickly, we realized there were shared resources not tied to my Epic train. On our value-based care side, for example, they could activate some of these ideas now and test AI voice.”

Another opportunity emerged around prior authorizations. “We could run smaller tests of change without too much disruption,” Henriksen said. “We moved from, ‘Can’t do it, we’re overloaded, we’re taxed; look at all the AI coming with our EHR already,’ to, ‘Okay, but what about these use cases? Where could we fit them? What would that look like?”

As the conductor of his train, Henriksen saw his role as clarifying decision rights. “It’s been incredibly helpful. I’m not sure many health systems have gone through this kind of exercise. 

"Too often, leaders feel they do not have decision-making rights until something reaches the CEO, which creates delays. Then it becomes, ‘We just can’t do it.’”

Embracing change

When it comes to overcoming resistance to change, Henriksen’s advice is simple: “Embrace it. It’s going to feel uncomfortable before it feels comfortable.

“We try to set a mindset across our organization that says, ‘It’s not clear, and that’s okay. You don’t know what tomorrow looks like, and that’s okay.’ A little bit of instruction around the Agile framework helps too: we’ll iterate, we’ll learn, we’ll figure it out.

“We don’t have to have all the answers to move forward. That’s been a huge mindset shift for us, and it’s been empowering because people now feel comfortable failing—or at least trying.

“Expect change. It’s coming, and that’s okay.”

Measuring success

Measuring success – both in the work and in organizational alignment, team engagement, and culture – is a challenge in healthcare. Henriksen focuses on empowerment and execution.

“We still pay close attention to our KPIs. If we can’t measure it and drive execution, we have a problem. OKRs provide a framework for making progress toward those goals and building momentum.

“The objectives and key results written at the manager level are now visible higher in the organization. And, more importantly, they’re actually being executed because they sit above the line in this process.

“It’s empowering. People see a problem and feel they can fix it.”

Partnerships play a role

“We try, as much as possible, to take the problems we’re trying to solve to the IT team first and simply say, ‘We’ve got a problem,’ or ‘We’ve heard about some ways others are solving this. How do you want to approach it?’ That gives them a chance to weigh in early.”

Doing that accelerates the cycle and reduces pushback because IT is helping enable the decision-making process, Henriksen noted. 

“They’re also doing a lot of the pre-work, saying things like, ‘That’s a great idea, but it’ll take 300 human hours to turn it on.’ The other initiative I gave them two weeks ago also takes 300 hours. Which one do I want? We can’t have both unless we resource differently.’

“That’s really the role they play: quantifying what used to be subjective. They help define our actual capacity in IT, which makes us far more nimble and realistic about what we can take on.” IT becomes tightly aligned with technology partners or vendors who can supplement the work.

Lessons learned 

So, what’s most important for health system leaders trying to bridge IT and operations? 

“Change the reporting structure. It’s the simplest step you can take that probably has the greatest impact. 

“Have some of those shared services that might have traditionally reported directly to the CEO or CFO instead report to the CNO or COO. The dynamic changes, and we’re not at odds with each other anymore.”

And on lessons learned throughout the process, Henriksen reiterates, “Take a situation or problem to IT first and let them weigh in. We really try to manage by asking questions.

“For example, in a contact center last week, I saw team members toggling between ten screens within five minutes. My favorite tool is the magic wand; I start with asking, ‘If it existed, what would be most valuable to you?’ Then we start figuring out what matters most, like replacing the IVR, which will help reduce dropped calls by about 15% due to wait times.

“If AI Voice could take those calls up front, how many more could we handle? And what would we do with them if we did? Walking through possibilities like that helps avoid the immune response you often get when introducing new technology or vendors. 

“Most people say they want change because of what they’re dealing with, but they don’t really know it’s what they want. You have to guide them through the journey to get buy-in.”

Preparing for the future

A people-first mindset is at the heart of Children’s Mercy’s transformation.

Henriksen and his team are proving that transformation doesn’t have to cause disruption. It can be the momentum that carries the organization into the future.