Improving Patient and Provider Experiences with Technology with Aaron Wilcox

This is part of our weekly executive insights series where Elion CEO Bobby Guelich speaks with healthcare leaders about their tech priorities and learnings. For more, become a member and sign up for our email here.

Role: General Surgeon and Physician Lead, Surgical Care Experience Technology

Organization: A large integrated payer-provider

Can you provide a quick overview of your role and focus areas?

I’m a general surgeon specializing in robotic surgery, abdominal reconstruction, and foregut surgery. On the technology side, I focus on building beautiful patient experiences. In practice, that means considering not just the patients, but also the doctors, care teams, and systems in place. My role spans technology, people, change management, and clinical work.

When you talk about improving patient experiences, can you share an example to illustrate how that work comes to life?

An early example for our team was when we had an opportunity to improve efficiency in the way that patients receive surgical care by eliminating a largely administrative visit.

As part of the surgery prep process, we had a patient visit that handled tasks like patient education, signing forms, and making co-payments. It was important from an admin perspective, but it took time from surgeons and staff without adding much value for patients.

Through feedback from our team and patients, we realized we could deliver this information differently. Instead of overwhelming patients with everything at once, we moved these tasks to a digital engagement system. It broke education into bite-sized, just-in-time pieces, tailored to each patient’s journey. This created an enduring resource for patients and freed our teams to focus on more critical work. It was our first step toward engaging patients differently, and it has since expanded to other areas.

What are your current focus areas as you look ahead?

Surgery is incredibly complicated, touching every corner of the hospital—lab, radiology, pharmacy, DME, pathology, various specialists, RCM, and more. Given that, a key focus is on building consistency across patient care experiences, both geographically and patient-to-patient, ensuring the same quality, value, and cost for similar care across our system.

Additionally, a lot of our work has been about providing timely access to care and streamlining journeys by eliminating unnecessary steps. At the end of the day, we want to provide high-quality, high-value care as quickly as possible.

You mentioned there have been some key lessons you’ve learned along the way. Can you share what has worked well and what hasn’t?

Yes, we’ve learned a lot.

1. Marry technical and clinical objectives: Technical teams often focus on technical KPIs (like ticket response time, time to go live, and variance from budget), while clinical teams prioritize quality, cost, and patient satisfaction. Aligning these goals ensures joint accountability and meaningful outcomes.

2. Start with the problem, not the technology: My motto is “technology at the service of the idea.” Identify real, operational problems that are ready to receive a technology solution, rather than forcing a shiny new tool into the workflow.

3. Condition care teams for change: Healthcare is evolving, and technology will play a central role. Teams need to be open to new workflows and tools. Establish literacy around new technologies, create governance structures for trust, and start small to build confidence.

4. Listen and iterate: When deploying something new, take every piece of feedback seriously. Early adjustments can prevent larger issues down the line.

Can you expand on how you help condition teams for change? That’s a common challenge we hear from other healthcare leaders.

• Building literacy around the technologies you plan to deploy is critical. People need to understand if they can trust it and how it benefits them.

• Governance is also important—teams need to trust that the institution is choosing the right tools.

• We use our existing operational teams to deploy tools, leveraging their trust and structure to increase adoption.

• Starting small with manageable, impactful projects helps build momentum.

• Listening to feedback and addressing concerns promptly shows that you’re aligned with your teams’ goals and builds confidence in the process.

Any final thoughts or advice for health system leaders navigating similar challenges?

As a clinician, I’ve seen how this work scales your influence. Engaging clinical experts in these projects ensures problems are addressed with the right perspective.

There’s incredible creative, technical, and clinical energy coming together in healthcare right now. If we can harness it effectively, we have an opportunity to create something truly beautiful and transformative. My advice is to find clinicians with an interest in innovation and empower them to collaborate with technical teams. That intersection is where the magic happens.