Episode Overview

Title: Lisa Stephenson, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, Cedars-Sinai Health System
Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Gracelyn Keller
Guest: Lisa Stephenson, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, Cedars-Sinai Health System

Main Theme:
This episode features an in-depth conversation with Lisa Stephenson on how artificial intelligence (AI), virtual care, and recent healthcare legislation are influencing health IT strategy, nurse workflows, and overall healthcare delivery. Lisa brings a frontline, pragmatic perspective on integrating emerging tech in a complex health system, operationalizing pilots, navigating regulations, and engaging clinicians for lasting change.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Lisa's Background and Role in Informatics

• Lisa Stephenson has nearly 25 years of nursing experience, with over half spent in informatics at major U.S. health systems and now at Cedars-Sinai.

  "I have been a nurse for almost 25 years now and more than half of that now I've been in informatics." (00:50)

2. AI in Healthcare: Use Cases Making a Difference (01:07 – 03:03)

Predictive Analytics & Clinical Decision Support

• AI has been foundational in providing real-time decision support via predictive analytics, improving accuracy and speed in care.

Generative AI for Clinical Summaries

• Cedars-Sinai uses Epic's AI-powered summarization tools, streamlining how clinicians review and extract key information from EHRs.

  "They have several models at this point to really bring all that data we've been putting into the [EHR] into different summarization type formats for clinicians, which helps them save some time looking through the chart." (01:52)

AI-Driven Ambient Documentation for Nurses

• Piloting the AVA nurse assistant: captures nurses’ voice input and converts it directly into structured documentation—not just provider-style narrative notes, but discrete flow sheet data.
• Early results: Nurses appreciate time saved; measurable ROI includes reduced overtime.

  “We're currently piloting and actually about ready to really broader expand our AVA nurse assistant, which is able to record those observations from nursing and do that documentation for them... we’ve actually been able to demonstrate some hard ROI with decreasing incremental overtime.” (02:38–02:55)

3. Expanding Virtual Care: Governance and Patient Engagement (03:03 – 05:05)

Infrastructure and Operational Hurdles

• Implementing virtual nursing required creative technical solutions (e.g., mobile carts due to inability to hardwire some rooms).
• Early and ongoing engagement of multidisciplinary stakeholders—steering committee, legal, risk, marketing, communications—was key.

Governance, Communication, and Consent

• Developed patient-facing communication strategies to explain in-room technology.
• Legal team driven new consent requirements for virtual care solutions.

  “Our legal really wanted to make sure that patients also realized that we were going to be using this technology and have a separate consent drawn out… have the nurse talk them through that and get that consent.” (04:22)

Guiding Principle

• Success attributed to involving "the right people at the table early enough in the process to make sure we had the process figured out 100%." (04:48)

4. Impact of Legislation on Health IT Strategy (05:05 – 06:11)

• Recent legislation and reimbursement uncertainties have made organizations like Cedars-Sinai more conservative with investments.

  “Financially, just making a lot more conservative decisions... really focusing on, do we, you know, the technology we're looking at, is it solving a problem? What's the potential ROI?” (05:22)

• AI and virtual nursing pilots require clear ROI justification to finance leadership.
• Growing mandate to maximize efficiency with existing tools; ongoing review of application portfolios for rationalization.

5. Advice for Healthcare Leaders Facing Rapid Technological Change (06:11 – 07:22)

Key Takeaway

• Fundamental care delivery is changing; success hinges on involving those most affected—from clinicians to direct leaders—early and consistently.
• Leadership buy-in and staff engagement ensure new tech fits actual workflow and can be iteratively improved.

  “It is newer technology and we don't always know the best way it will fit within workflow. So working with them to partner and continue to refine and improve... keeping them engaged really requires that direct leadership to continue to support the staff and make them feel like they're being heard and that... we do have their interest as well as the patient's best interest in mind.” (06:54–07:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI evolution:

  “AI has been around for a while in different forms... predictive analytics... has been critical, and as we're developing with AI, it's improving.” (01:32)

• On piloting digital documentation tools:

  “AI was really the key component to being able to link those verbal recordings to the actual discrete flow sheet rows versus just a narrative note like providers usually do.” (02:25)

• On balancing technology rollout and patient trust:

  “We’ve got the marketing folks engaged to make sure that there was really talking points developed for nurses on how to communicate with the patients with this new technology in the room. What's this camera? What's it doing?” (04:04)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Lisa's background: 00:50
• AI use cases & clinical documentation innovation: 01:28 – 03:03
• Virtual nursing pilot & operational governance: 03:22 – 05:05
• Legislation’s impact & financial strategy: 05:18 – 06:11
• Advice to leaders on technology change: 06:21 – 07:22

Conclusion

Lisa Stephenson provides a pragmatic, optimistic outlook on how nurse informaticists can drive adoption of AI and virtual care amidst operational, regulatory, and financial headwinds. Her emphasis: real-world clinician engagement, early multidisciplinary governance, and measurable value. Her practical insights are invaluable to any health system leader navigating technology-driven transformation.