Health Care Strategy & Market Development Week

Find a Hospital: Turning Complex Data Into a Clearer Experience

The Find a Hospital project began with a complex challenge. Users needed a faster, more reliable way to locate accredited hospitals across multiple quality programs, but the underlying data was fragmented and difficult to maintain. Solving it required rethinking how accreditation data was structured, displayed, and managed across systems.

Amy Hastings brought technical expertise and strategic vision to lead this work. She coordinated across Integrated Communications, the Quality Programs team, IT, and the website development vendor to align data sources, define architecture needs, and translate them into a seamless, user centered experience. Her ability to connect technical and operational perspectives and to turn complexity into clarity was instrumental to the project’s success.

The updated Find a Hospital tool now delivers accurate, intuitive results while setting a new standard for data quality and collaboration. Amy’s leadership transformed a technical rebuild into a model for how digital strategy can strengthen transparency, user trust, and cross divisional teamwork at ACS.

Forging New Pathways: Building a Smarter, More Strategic In House Marketing Model

At Acenda Integrated Health, our marketing team faced a familiar challenge. Service line leaders often approached us requesting specific tactics like a billboard, postcard, or flyer before defining their goals or audiences. While well intentioned, this limited our ability to deliver strategic, data informed work.

To move from order taking to true strategic partnership, we built the Acenda In House Marketing Suite, a centralized platform that connects to our project management system through a custom ticketing process. This shift did more than streamline workflows. It reshaped how our organization approaches marketing.

Our new request forms focus on goals and audiences rather than tactics, prompting staff to think strategically from the start. Each submission automatically generates a project ticket, giving teams visibility, accountability, and clear timelines. Staff receive a ticket number and can track progress through completion, eliminating the back and forth of email requests.

The Marketing Suite also includes real time data insights and case studies from across our service lines, helping teams understand what works and why. This education first approach has strengthened internal understanding of how strategy and creative execution align to drive impact.

By pairing technology, education, and thoughtful process design, we have created a more efficient and transparent marketing model that saves time and better connects service line goals to the broader Acenda brand.

Strategic Planning for Impact: Advancing Pediatric Oncology

As Co Lead of the Department of Oncology Strategic Plan at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, I collaborate directly with the Chair of Oncology to shape the department’s long term direction for FY24 to 27. This comprehensive plan spans six focus areas and more than 13 strategic initiatives aimed at improving pediatric cancer care, cure rates, and quality of life.

To drive this work, I have implemented strategic planning and change management frameworks, training leaders across seven divisions to use these tools for effective project tracking, decision making, and collaboration. Our approach emphasizes early stakeholder engagement, transparent communication, and interdisciplinary teamwork, which are key elements for sustainable implementation.

Strategic planning is inherently person centered. Success depends on understanding the diverse personalities, cultures, and communication styles of our teams. I have found that tailoring communication and fostering co responsibility among stakeholders leads to more inclusive and resilient strategies.

This work reflects my commitment to equity and the human right to health. By aligning strategic planning with these values, we are not only advancing institutional goals, we are making a meaningful difference in the lives of children with cancer.

Forging New Pathways: Leveraging the Expert, Empowering the Individual

Organizations rely on experts to train teams in health literacy for maximum patient engagement with health materials, making them easy for patients to understand and compliant with regulations across a multitude of documents. Experts reduce jargon, turning “clinical speak” into human-centered plain language, which is essential to making health communication accessible.

Unfortunately, it’s easy for health communication teams to be overwhelmed by review queues for materials growing faster than they can keep up. Despite everyone’s best efforts, this flood of work can quickly erode brand clarity and consistency.

Thinking of ways to address this problem, we asked a different kind of question: not how can we train more people faster, but how can we apply the expertise of current teams at scale?

We began experimenting with artificial intelligence, not to replace experts, but as a way to preserve what our seasoned trainers have taught for years and amplify their impact. We wanted a digital partner that could sit beside any staff member—from a communications specialist to a care coordinator—and offer the same thoughtful, evidence-based coaching they’d receive from an expert.

To fulfill this need, we developed HealthLiteracyCopilot™, an AI-powered platform built specifically for health communication. Unlike general AI writing tools, it is grounded in assessment, review, and translation based on proven health literacy standards for grading understandability and actionability.

The tool reviews materials line-by-line, considering how a patient might read the message and suggests targeted improvements to close gaps where understanding might break down. This turns every document audit into a learning opportunity for communication teams and embeds health literacy best practices directly into daily workflows.

The need for a more efficient means of health material review speaks for itself. Studies show that 88% of U.S. adults struggle to understand health information, and patients with limited literacy skills are up to 69% more likely to be hospitalized.1-2 What’s more, people with limited literacy spend $7,500 more per year in healthcare costs, while $106B to $238B in annual healthcare costs could be avoided with better health literacy.3-4 These are system-level failures and addressing them requires a scalable solution.

Bringing this tool to life was its own journey. From day one, we built the platform on a foundation of proven health literacy standards, including IHA’s patented PLATO™/N-PLAT™ and AHRQ’s PEMAT™ framework. Working with a national network of experts, we translated decades of human insight into algorithms tested against real materials and tuned so feedback feels like a coach, not a critic. Importantly, the tool doesn’t just flag errors, but also teaches while it works, creating a synergistic partnership with communication teams.

Our biggest breakthrough came when users began telling us, “It feels like I’m finally in control of the message, not the other way around.”

As we continued refining our approach, the focus shifted to helping teams apply health literacy standards consistently across large volumes of content. We explored ways to make reviews more collaborative, support translation for diverse audiences, and maintain clear, plain language communication across departments. These refinements helped make the tool more scalable without losing the human expertise and oversight that drives quality communication.

Our experience has shown that combining human experts with a structured, AI-guided review tool can strengthen the consistency and clarity of health communication while managing large volumes of documents. By translating expert judgment into repeatable, teachable review steps, our team discovered that AI can be a bridge between institutional knowledge and everyday communication practice. As the industry adapts to meet more demanding communication needs, leveraging the power of AI can help ensure health literacy isn’t lost when a key team member leaves, but is something that persists, grows, and spreads with every written message.

Building a Stronger Digital Foundation for Health Systems

When Modea first began working with health systems, our focus was on helping organizations implement digital platforms that improved patient access and engagement. We partnered with clients to launch websites and tools that made care more accessible, but over time, we began to see a shift. Health systems weren’t just searching for new technology — they were looking for strategic partners who could help them navigate an increasingly complex digital landscape. As emerging technologies, evolving security standards, and the rise of AI began reshaping healthcare, it became clear that success required more than great software. It demanded a holistic understanding of how people, processes, and technology come together to support the full patient journey. In one recent engagement, our team worked side by side with a client’s internal teams to deeply understand their operational challenges — from budget pressures to competing departmental priorities. What we uncovered was that their need wasn’t simply a new platform; it was a cohesive digital strategy that balanced innovation with governance and long-term sustainability. Together, we evaluated their existing systems, identified opportunities to streamline and secure workflows, and guided them in selecting tools and technologies that could evolve with their organization. The outcome wasn’t just a more efficient platform — it was a stronger digital foundation that empowered their teams to adapt and grow.

In a recent engagement, Modea worked side by side with a client’s internal teams to understand operational challenges from budget pressures to competing departmental priorities. The need was not simply a new platform. It was a cohesive digital strategy that balanced innovation with governance and long term sustainability.

Together, they evaluated existing systems, identified opportunities to streamline and secure workflows and guided the organization in selecting tools and technologies that could evolve over time. The outcome was more than a more efficient platform. It was a stronger digital foundation that empowered teams to adapt and grow.