Scaling AI and Innovation with Tampa General's Chief Digital & Innovation Officer

In this episode of Bright Spots in Healthcare, recorded live at the HLTH 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Eric Glazer sits down with Scott Arnold from Tampa General Hospital, one of the nation’s leading academic health systems, to explore their ambitious digital transformation journey. The conversation dives deep into how TGH built a unified digital foundation across a large, geographically dispersed system, enabling them to scale AI solutions that deliver measurable impact on operations, patient care, and the clinician experience.

Scott shares his blueprint for modernizing a major health system, moving AI from pilot project to enterprise-wide tool, and provides practical lessons for health system and health plan leaders seeking to reduce burnout, improve satisfaction, and bring innovation to scale.

The conversation dives into:

• Why a single digital operating system, standardizing the EHR, analytics, and phone systems, is the non-negotiable foundation for scalable AI and consistent patient experience

• The function of TGH Ventures, the dedicated venture arm used to fund and rapidly implement market-vetted digital health solutions

• The strategy for prioritizing AI deployment by focusing on human-centric problems, such as clinician burnout and nursing staff turnover

• How TGH partnered with Palantir to create an AI-enabled Care Coordination Operating System (CCOS) that uses real-time data to optimize patient flow and predict risk

• The critical need for operational governance to prevent AI from being layered on fragmented infrastructure, which often leads to "faster chaos"

• Building a culture that is grounded in trust, speed, and experimentation to ensure the organization can keep pace with rapid technological evolution

This discussion offers a pragmatic, replicable blueprint for any health system ready to modernize with intention and urgency, demonstrating how digital transformation can be grounded in practicality, not just hype.

References:

• Charlie Munger’s famous quote “Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on Earth”

• Learning from outside healthcare: Scott's view on "taking a page out of Apple" and applying consumer-grade principles to hospital system design

Scott Arnold’s Bio: https://www.tgh.org/about-tgh/tampa-general-hospital-leadership/scott-arnold

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About Bright Spots Ventures:

Bright Spots Ventures is a healthcare strategy and engagement company that creates content, communities, and connections to accelerate innovation. We help healthcare leaders discover what's working, and how to scale it. By bringing together health plan, hospital, and solution leaders, we facilitate the exchange of ideas that lead to measurable impact. Through our podcast, executive councils, private events, and go-to-market strategy work, we surface and amplify the "bright spots" in healthcare—proven innovations others can learn from and replicate. At our core, we exist to create trusted relationships that make real progress possible. Visit our website at www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com.

Visit our website:  www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com.

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