Garrett Olin, MBA, Chief Information Officer at Shasta Community Health Center

Summary

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Podcast Episode Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Guest: Garrett Olen, MBA – Chief Information Officer, Shasta Community Health Center
Host: Chanel Bunger
Date: November 12, 2025
Recorded at: 10th Annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM Meeting, Chicago

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Episode Overview

This episode features a candid discussion with Garrett Olen, CIO at Shasta Community Health Center, on the real-world integration of artificial intelligence, digital health tools, and the effects of emerging legislation on healthcare IT. Olen offers grounded advice for leaders navigating technology adoption, with a focus on patient-centered operations, data security, and adaptability amidst regulatory and funding uncertainty.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Garrett Olen’s Background & Shasta Community Health (00:47–01:16)

• Shasta Community Health Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) located in Northern California.
• Olen has a decade of healthcare experience, previously working at FQHCs in Indiana and New Mexico, plus experience across other industries.

Practical Use Cases of AI in Healthcare IT (01:38–03:27)

• Ambient Technology for Clinical Documentation:
  • The rise of AI-powered “ambient” note-taking tools is a prominent trend.
  • Shasta had tested ambient AI for note capture but returned to human scribes:
    • Their human scribes do more than documentation—queuing orders, labs, prepping visits.
    • Removing scribes made providers' workload significantly heavier.
    • Olen’s insight:

      “We realized that right now it's just it doesn't work for us ... We keep hearing about people going to that technology and seeing such a huge improvement and we realized they probably never had scribes.” (02:25)

• Agentic AI – Future Use Cases:
  • Shasta is exploring agentic AI for Health Information Management (HIM), especially processing and verifying patient records to improve speed and accuracy.

Balancing Innovation and Operational Constraints (03:27–05:45)

• Advice for Technology Adoption:
  • Many organizations implement AI first, then address governance as an afterthought—a backward approach, according to Olen.

    “I would say start with your governance first. How does your organization want to utilize it? What guardrails are you going to put in place for that?” (04:04)

  • Emphasizes transparency both internally (with staff) and externally (with patients):

    “If you're utilizing AI, let them know so they can have those choices ... Do you have the ability to opt out or not?” (04:21)

• Vendor Security Evaluation:
  • New technology vendors are assessed on security (past breaches, secure networks, etc.).
  • If vendors won’t strengthen security, Shasta will decline to work with them to protect patient data.

Navigating Legislative and Funding Shifts (05:45–07:54)

• Impact of Legislation:
  • Recent California AI law now mandates transparency and safeguards around AI algorithm use.
  • Ongoing uncertainty about federal funding, particularly for FQHCs serving underserved populations.
• Strategic Response:
  • Proactive renegotiation and trimming of vendor contracts to contain costs without cutting services.

    “We've tried to be more proactive, try to be more forward thinking … renegotiate all our contracts and reduce our costs that way … or we have found contracts that we really don't need anymore.” (07:18)

Advice for Healthcare Leaders Facing Rapid Change (08:07–09:06)

• Preparation is Key:
  • Olen’s major lesson: plan for potential scenarios, even if they don't materialize.
  • Engage cross-functional leadership in scenario planning and have contingency plans ready.

    “My top piece of advice…is prepare. The preparation is key to everything...even if it's lining up vendors that may be needed, technologies...if this happens, what are we going to do?” (08:13)

• Be Proactive, Not Reactive:
  • Simple preparatory steps can make a difference in readiness for tech and regulatory changes.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We realized that right now it's just it doesn't work for us ... We keep hearing about people going to that technology and seeing such a huge improvement and we realized they probably never had scribes.”
  — Garrett Olen, on AI ambient note-taking vs. human scribes (02:25)

• “I would say start with your governance first. How does your organization want to utilize it? What guardrails are you going to put in place for that?”
  — Garrett Olen, on implementing AI responsibly (04:04)

• “If you're utilizing AI, let them know so they can have those choices ... Do you have the ability to opt out or not?”
  — Garrett Olen, on transparency and patient trust (04:21)

• “We've tried to be more proactive, try to be more forward thinking … renegotiate all our contracts and reduce our costs that way … or we have found contracts that we really don't need anymore.”
  — Garrett Olen, on adapting to funding uncertainties (07:18)

• “My top piece of advice…is prepare. The preparation is key to everything...even if it's lining up vendors that may be needed, technologies...if this happens, what are we going to do?”
  — Garrett Olen, closing guidance for health leaders (08:13)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:47–01:16 – Olen’s background and Shasta’s FQHC model
• 01:38–03:27 – Real-world AI adoption, lessons from AI vs. human scribes, HIM use cases
• 03:27–05:45 – Governance, transparency, and security in technology adoption
• 05:45–07:54 – Legislative impact; contracting and cost-saving strategies
• 08:07–09:06 – Preparing for future technology and care demands

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Tone and Takeaways

Olen’s approach is practical, honest, and grounded. He cautions tech-first enthusiasm when organizations lack groundwork in governance, and he repeatedly underscores the need for transparency, security rigor, and strategic preparedness. Leaders are encouraged to plan for disruptions, work closely across organizational roles, and guard patient trust as technologies evolve.

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Transcript

[A]

Philips is a health tech leader focused on innovation that improves the health and well being of people. Our healthcare technology and informatics solutions help care teams diagnose, treat and manage more patients with greater precision, speed and confidence. Across the care journey with Philips, clinicians are empowered with streamlined insights in the moments that matter for every patient. Better care for more people. Philips.

[B]

Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. My name is Chanel Bunger and today I'm recording live at the 10th annual Health IT Digital Health and RCM Meeting in Chicago and currently sitting down with Garrett Olen, the Chief Information Officer at Shasta Community Health Center. Garrett, thank you so much for joining me today.

[C]

Thank you for the invitation, I appreciate it.

[B]

Of course. And to get us started, could you share a bit about yourself and your work in healthcare?

[C]

Sure. So, as you said, Chief Information Officer with Shasta Community Health center, we're located in Northern California, in Redding, about halfway between Sacramento and the Oregon border. We're in fqhc. This is the third one I've been in. One in Indiana, one in New Mexico, and about 10 years now in healthcare, but worked in many different industries over the years.

[B]

Perfect, perfect. Thank you so much for the introduction. And now we all know that AI right now is a huge buzzword and nearly half of all medical practices reported using AI in some capacity in the last year. I'm curious to hear though, from your perspective, what are some use cases that are making a big difference for you right now and how are you leveraging them in your organization?

[C]

So I think the, the thing that everyone is hearing today is all about the ambient technology. You know, taking the note for the clinician, that's probably the one of the biggest impacts that in general everybody is utilizing. You know, the agentic AI coming up this year will be another area that will be emerging I think very quickly how we leverage them. Today we're a little different. We, we attempted to leverage the ambient AI technology for the notes. The problem is that for us, probably 12, 15 years ago, the decision was made to have live human scribes in the room with the clinician. And over the year they have evolved into doing more than just the note, right, queuing up orders, labs, you know, diagnostics, what have you, checking discrete data for quality, prepping the visit, things like that. So when we tried to go to ambient technology and removing that live human scribe from that equation, all of a sudden the clinician had more to do. Right. That they hadn't been doing all these years. So we realized that right now it's Just it doesn't work for us. And you know, we, we keep hearing about people going to that technology and seeing such a huge improvement and we realized they probably never had scribes. Yeah, right.

[B]

I'm blessing.

[C]

And we are starting to look at the agentic AI. We have some use cases there around our him, the patient files that we received, records to hopefully improve that process speed and accuracy.

[B]

Absolutely. And as virtual care expands from AI enabled tools and remote monitoring to broader digital health platforms, introducing new technology always comes with its challenges. I'm curious though, what advice do you have for leaders navigating everything from governments to patient engagement? And can you share an example of how your organization has balanced innovation with operational constraints?

[C]

Yeah, AI does bring its challenges. And as virtual care expands, you know, I think the advice I have is interesting. Going to different conferences, talking about AI and what have you. There's a lot of organizations that have implemented it and now they're trying to figure out the governance backwards and it's. Yeah, for me that seems all backwards. Right. And so I would say start with your governance first. What, you know, how does your organization want to utilize it? What guardrails are you going to put in place for that? You know, how are you evaluating it? The transparency around it to your patients, to your, your staff, you know, patient engagement. Same thing is just being open and honest. If, you know, if you're utilizing AI, let them know so they can have those choices of, you know, do you have the ability to opt out or not? Right. You know, so some of those, that's kind of that balance that we have is one is we always, anytime we bring on anything new, we have a tool to evaluate the security of the vendor. Looking at everything from their brand, reputation, you know, have they had any breaches in the past? Is their email secure? Is you know, is there network secure? Different things like that. Because we feel that if, if we can identify areas that they need to improve on for the security, if we're trading information, patient information with them, exchanging information, we want to make sure they're as secure as possible. And if they're not willing to improve those things, then we may not be willing to work with them. Right.

[B]

Yeah, you don't have to lose yourself.

[C]

So yeah, those are some of the things that we, we kind of look at and put in place before we operationalize anything.

[B]

Got it, got it. And now like there's always a lot going on with the legislation side of healthcare and with that, I'm curious how you are seeing recent legislation, both state and federal affect healthcare organizations and specifically healthcare it. And have you adjusted strategies in response?

[C]

Yeah, obviously, you know, today's October 1st, so, you know, we have the shutdown that started, so we'll see how long that lasts and where that goes. You know, California, I think it was Monday, passed a new law around AI putting safeguards. So companies providing those services, depending on their size and what have you and scope need to be as transparent about their algorithms and things like that vice that may be built in and be able to identify any safeguards around the use of their systems. You know, the one big beautiful bill, there's things in there that still haven't been truly defined. You know, who qualifies for whatever or what are the requirements around the work, requirements for people to continue receiving benefits or what have you. You know, as an FQHC serving those underserved populations, it could really affect them. So, you know, the, the funding side of things is also up in the air. Right. So we've adjusted, we've tried to be more proactive, try to be more forward thinking of, you know, because we don't know what the landscape will look like tomorrow until it truly gets defined. This year we've been trying to renegotiate all our contracts and reduce our costs that way. Not cut services that we have, but just get a better price where we can or we have found contracts that we really don't need anymore. Right. You may have some overlap with, with different vendors that you have, so you can get rid of one and keep the other. So those are some of the things that we've been looking at this year.

[B]

Got it. Well, Garrett, I want to thank you for your time today, but before I let you go, I'm curious to hear what's your top piece of advice for healthcare leaders as they prepare for further advancements in technology and rising demands for care.

[C]

I always struggle with this question, right. I think the, you know, my top piece of advice, it's in the question, right, Is prepare. The preparation is key to everything that, you know, I, I try to look into the future, if you will, and anticipate what some of those changes may be in the future and start preparing now, even if it's lining up vendors that may be needed, technologies and, you know, hardware, software, whatever it may be, working with different departments, right. Whether it's the CFO or the COO and kind of getting a game plan of if this happens, what are we going to do? And just having, you know, again, just kind of prepare a little plan just in case, if you have to implement. It's great because you have it. If you don't, that's okay. You didn't take a lot of time, but at least you. You took some time to prepare.

[B]

Absolutely. Well, Garrett, that's an excellent spot for us to end on. And I want to thank you once again for your time today and for sharing your insights on the Beckers healthcare podcast.

[C]

Thank you.