Heather Pnakovich
Clinical Informaticist
Oracle Health & Epic
View Bio
Transformation & Delivery Services
The Moment
What I do when it matters most
Since joining Healthcare IT Leaders I was aligned to a community health system in interior Alaska. They are the largest hospital and healthcare provider in the region.
I joined when they were ramping up to kick off a large, complex transformational project focused on consolidating disparate systems across acute clinical, ambulatory, and revenue cycle onto a single platform.
This was a priority project that had been on their roadmap for years. But between organizational roadblocks and the sheer difficulty of organizing something that size, they struggled to move forward on their own. What they recognized was that they needed to partner with someone who could help them organize it and go execute on their vision.
I’ve been on this team since day one. I’ve seen every iteration of the project life cycle, including the trepidation heading into cutover. The client was uneasy much of it, and our job was to be the steady, calming force. Mine specifically was to help them see their future state clearly and then walk them through implementation.
"Building long-term partnerships with the client is where you provide the most impact. Seeing real results over the long term is what I find gratifying."
“Healthcare IT Leaders is by far the best partner I've ever worked with in all my years of doing this.”
Client post go-live feedback
The work
A Recent Engagement
About three or four months into the project, which was roughly a year out from go-live, the collective team hadn’t really found its footing. The engagement was like a three-legged stool, with lots of coordination needed between the health system (client), technology vendor (Oracle Health), and the implementation partner (Healthcare IT Leaders). At first decisions were made and we were moving forward, but it was not a cohesive, true three-legged partnership, and that created a lot of trepidation on the client side. They had never done anything like this. They didn’t know how it was supposed to feel or look.
It came to a head shortly before go-live, with the client, Oracle Health, and Healthcare IT Leaders working in three different silos. I knew something had to change so I raised my hand and said something’s not working here. We took a pause and began to reevaluate our strategy. We brought the leadership group together across all three organizations and did a level-setting exercise. We knew we were all aligned to a single common goal, but we needed to figure out how to work effectively together. At the end of the day, my priority is to the client, and we must do everything right by them.
That conversation broke down a lot of the walls between the three organizations and aligned us better to keep moving the project forward. It was also a good opportunity to show our knowledge of how Oracle Health implementations really work and prove that we can do this. That strengthened the relationship with the vendor and the client at the same time.
We helped the client go live June 2026. Implementations are never easy, but I’m proud of the work our professional services team did and how we were able to deliver for our client. We took the lead where they needed to; we kept the client accountable on their side; and we walked hand-in- hand through the biggest transformation project this organization has ever taken on.
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Listen before you prescribe.
Every client is different. You can go in with what you know, but you can't go in expecting that knowledge to fit exactly as you understand it today. You also can't expect every client to be as open to your thought and input right away.
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Understand the culture before you tailor the approach.
Go in listening, understand the culture, form those relationships and partnerships first. Then take that and tailor the style and the story you want to tell to get your point across.
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Earn the right to bring your expertise.
Once you establish the relationship and show that you are listening and understand the client, whether it's their struggles or their vision, then you can bring in your background and your knowledge and really start weaving that in: I hear you, and this is how I know we can push this forward.
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Know what's at stake for the people you're serving.
his health system is truly oriented to the care of their community. They really are the only provider around, so they're providing care for their families and their friends. Understanding that what we're doing matters to them and their community is what helps us bring our A-game.
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Remove the Blinders.
The mistake I typically see with these types of engagements is coming in with blinders on. This is how we do it, this is how we're going to do it, without
what it takes
Advice for Success
When I come into a new client or a new project, I am very cognizant of listening first. That's something I feel like I learned very early on in my consulting career: relationships matter, and so does situational awareness.