Building the technology organizations that keep health systems running

I came into healthcare IT through the clinical side — I was an ER nurse before I was an analyst, which meant I understood the workflows I'd eventually spend a career building technology around. That clinical grounding, combined with an early curiosity about computers, is what pulled me out of the emergency department and into Epic implementation work.

As an Epic Integrated Architect at Bon Secours Health System, I managed enterprise Epic architecture, built Interconnect web services, and developed adjunct applications — mobile apps, SharePoint integrations, and automation tools — that extended what the EHR could do on its own. Alongside that, a colleague and I designed and launched OptimOrder, a SaaS order-set management platform, through the company I founded, Schertz and Jennings, LLC.

As a Clinical Integrated Solutions Advisor at Riverside Health System, I reported to the CMIO and led high-value projects with direct impact on patient care, finances, and regulatory compliance — building the health system's initial AWS environment and mentoring other engineers along the way.

Today, as System Director of Technology at Riverside, I lead a team of 16 engineers, server administrators, and DBAs across infrastructure, cloud, and application engineering. I've moved our Epic presentation layer off Citrix and into Azure Virtual Desktop, migrated our disaster recovery environment to the cloud, and built the governance and incentive programs that keep the team growing.

Most recently, that scope has grown to include AI. I'm leading our approach to on-prem inference capacity, AWS Bedrock, retrieval-augmented generation, Knowledge Bases, and agentic workflows — applying the same governance and risk discipline to AI that I've always applied to Epic and cloud infrastructure. This is the work I want to keep doing: running technology organizations that healthcare systems can depend on, including the AI capability they'll need next.