Enterprise innovation in action: Sutter Health’s three-lane approach to transforming care

Sharing ideas and inspiration is key to meaningfully advancing healthcare innovation—and elevating the experiences of those “on the ground” is a critical component. We recently spoke with Chris Waugh, VP Innovation at Sutter Health, to learn how his team is transforming care delivery through a three-lane model—advancing new products, empowering employee-driven innovation, and forging strategic partnerships and investments.

Sutter Health is a not-for-profit integrated health system serving more than three million patients across Northern California. The organization spans hospitals, ambulatory care centers, and digital health services—unified by a commitment to high-quality, patient-centered care and curiosity.

Sutter Health is focused on developing new ways to address healthcare’s most persistent challenges—including new approaches to care delivery, digital transformation, workforce enablement, and more. For support in this work, Sutter engaged Rock Health through the Rock Health Insights Membership. We’re grateful for their continued partnership and the chance to share their story. Read on for more!

Rachel Soffer, Rock Health: What does your team do, and what are some of the most pressing challenges your team is working to address in healthcare today?

Chris Waugh, Sutter Health: In my role, I co-lead Innovation at Sutter Health with my clinical dyad, Rich Milani, M.D. We’re focused on creating a culture of experimentation while ensuring our innovations translate into real-world impact across the system. Together we work closely with frontline teams, startups, and strategic partners to co-develop solutions that address the most pressing needs of our patients and providers—creating a more connected and convenient experience for patients while supporting whole-person health.

At the same time, we’re rethinking how to reduce the administrative and cognitive load on clinicians. At the heart of it, we’re working to design a more human-centered, tech-enabled healthcare system that truly supports the needs of both patients and care teams.

Can you share one or two initiatives your team is most excited about right now?

Our team is working on three lanes of work—Product, Innovation Catalysts and Partnerships & Investments. Some examples of our work include:

Product: Sutter Sync is a new digital care program designed to offer patients an effortless healthcare experience—providing convenient tools and proactive support to manage their chronic conditions from anywhere—while ensuring connected, coordinated care with their primary care team. The program’s first focus is high blood pressure, or hypertension, initially providing a select group of eligible Medicare patients personalized guidance and real-time tracking of their blood pressure with a connected device.
Innovation Catalysts: One example is Sutter’s Innovation Challenge, an enterprise-wide call for bold ideas from employees and clinicians across our organization. In the inaugural 2024 Innovation Challenge, more than 250 ideas were posted and more than 10,000 employees participated in the challenge by either adding an idea, joining a team or voting. Sutter is now piloting the winning idea, a screener for early cognitive decline—and the 2025 Challenge kicked off in June.
Partnerships & Investments: The Partnerships and Investments team plays a critical role in advancing strategic investments and high-impact partnerships, ensuring access to cutting edge healthcare technologies and early-stage innovations that support Sutter’s vision for the future of care delivery. Guided by a robust framework, our vision is to build relationships with companies via commercial deployments, co-development, and equity positions. Recent examples include our partnership with Abridge, which uses ambient AI technology to streamline clinical documentation—reducing administrative burden and allowing clinicians to focus more fully on patient care. We’ve also launched a collaboration with Aidoc, an AI-powered radiology and care coordination platform designed to accelerate the diagnosis and treatment of time-sensitive conditions.

Have there been any key lessons or “aha moments” from recent projects?

We’ve consistently seen that our frontline clinical and operational teams have brilliant, practical ideas—but can lack the technical knowledge or tools to bring those ideas to life. This disconnect can stall innovation unless there’s a deliberate effort to bridge the gap between end users and technical teams. Critical to the success of these efforts is having an innovation-driven CEO and senior leadership team who recognize the value of these frontline insights.

We also recognize the importance of securing operational buy-in from the outset—not just from leadership, but also from the frontline teams who will be impacted by and ultimately sustain the change. Having a dedicated team—with clear roles across clinical, technical, and operational functions—is essential not only for standing up a project, but for building the foundation to scale it successfully.

Another “aha” has been the power of AI to accelerate internal development and scale new products more effectively than traditional approaches. By integrating AI tools into our workflow, we’ve dramatically reduced the time it takes to prototype and test new ideas—turning weeks of work into days or even hours.

How do you stay connected to new ideas, technologies, or approaches outside your organization?

Intentionally nurturing external relationships is critical to advancing our work. We do this through a variety of channels:

Serving as Limited Partners (LPs) in venture funds: Serving as LPs in select healthcare and digital health venture funds has provided us with early visibility into emerging trends, technologies, and business models. This vantage point has helped us stay ahead of the curve, identify high-potential collaborators, and make more informed strategic decisions. These relationships also offer a platform for idea exchange with other healthcare leaders and innovators, strengthening our own internal innovation strategy.
Partnering with external vendors: We prioritize deep, collaborative relationships with our external technology and service vendors. Rather than taking off-the-shelf solutions, we engage these partners early and actively to co-develop or influence product roadmaps based on our system’s real-world needs. These kinds of partnerships have allowed us to shape tools that are not only more effective for our environment but also more scalable across other health systems—benefiting both sides.
Networking with the innovation ecosystem: We actively nurture relationships with thought leaders, startups, and innovation networks. Being located in the Bay Area places us at the center of tech and digital health activity, which allows us to observe and respond quickly to shifts in the landscape. Our team maintains a strong network of startup founders, innovation leaders at other health systems, and strategic partners. We regularly engage with organizations like Rock Health, which provides access to cutting edge insights, investment trends, and emerging technologies. Attending curated events throughout the year ensures we’re exposed to fresh thinking and real-time market signals. For example, at a recent Rock Health event in May, we participated in a deep dive on Primary Care innovation, where we explored advancements in AI, emerging investment strategies, and provider-led solutions addressing critical issues like patient access and clinician burnout. These types of engagements fuel our internal innovation efforts and help us translate external trends into action.

What emerging trends in digital health are you keeping a close eye on?

We’re closely watching the evolving role of AI in driving operational efficiencies and clinical support. From ambient documentation to predictive analytics and workflow automation, AI is rapidly shifting from a futuristic concept to a practical enabler of care delivery. What’s most exciting is the potential for AI not just to improve productivity, but to free up clinical capacity and reduce burnout—allowing providers to focus more on patient care.

In one word, how would you describe the future of healthcare innovation?

Fast, accurate, personalized, empathic (that’s four but this IS innovation so…)

Thanks again to Chris Waugh for sharing what’s next for innovation at Sutter Health—we appreciate your partnership and all your team is doing to push forward patient-centered innovation.

Looking for support on your big innovation bets? At Rock Health Advisory, we use our proprietary datasets, custom frameworks, and deep digital health expertise to help leading enterprises move from intuition to insight, and surface real signals from noise. Whether you’re looking to identify winning opportunities or leapfrog ahead of the competition—we’re here to help.