One Health System, One Stack: Digital Operations After a Major Merger
A hospital merger brought the organizations together. Their digital tools still needed a shared plan.
Separate tools, shared responsibilities
Hospital brand teams were using different email platforms, content management systems, and analytics tools. There was no shared approach to managing them or reporting results. Looking across the system exposed duplicated work and costs that weren’t obvious within a single brand.
Patients also needed a consistent way to find care. Provider details, service descriptions, and location information needed common standards, regardless of which hospital website someone started with.
Making room for each team’s concerns
The teams had established tools, vendor relationships, and routines. Some had seen earlier consolidation efforts stall.
Before recommending changes, I needed to understand what each team relied on and where previous efforts had run into trouble. Those conversations informed the shared approach.
How I approached it
The key decisionI mapped every platform in use before recommending any consolidation, so decisions rested on what teams actually used and paid for.
What I ruled outChoosing tools by feature list. Security and compliance requirements came first, and governance was designed alongside the tools instead of after them.
- InventoryDocument each platform: who used it, for what, and at what cost.
- ConsolidateSelect shared platforms based on security, compliance, and fit.
- StandardizeBuild a shared taxonomy for providers, services, and locations.
- Govern and trainSet ownership and decision rights, then train staff across brands.
What I did
I documented the platforms in use: who used them, what they did, and what they cost. The inventory showed where tools overlapped and where the setup had gaps.
From there, I developed a vendor consolidation strategy that accounted for security and compliance requirements. I documented responsibilities and a process for reviewing future platform changes.
For the patient-facing website, I worked on a shared way of labeling providers, services, locations, and related content so they connect across sites. Teams had common standards for organizing the information people use to find care.
I also included accessibility standards and review responsibilities in the governance work, then trained staff across the brands on the shared tools before launch.
What changed
The system adopted shared platforms and documented how teams would manage them. Staff received training, and responsibilities were recorded so the work wouldn’t depend solely on the people involved at launch.
The patient-facing work created a more consistent way to find care across the hospital brands.