August 20, 2026- As healthcare organizations continue exploring artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation, supply chain leaders are balancing innovation with a practical reality: new technology only works if teams are prepared to adopt it.
At Ochsner Health, Jacqueline Owens, MHA, PMP, AVP of Strategic Sourcing, is helping lead that balance by focusing on process improvement, stakeholder alignment and long-term operational sustainability. From overseeing a successful enterprise-wide Workday integration to exploring new AI-driven sourcing capabilities, Owens said meaningful innovation begins with understanding workflows, identifying pain points and ensuring teams understand the purpose behind change.
“Realistically, large-scale transformations often fail because organizations try to do too much at once without getting the right stakeholders aligned from the beginning.”
Owens said her team focuses first on understanding existing workflows and identifying where innovation can create meaningful improvements. Rather than assuming new technologies such as AI can solve every challenge, the team evaluates which pain points are actually within their control and where staff are willing and able to adopt changes.
“For example, I can’t just build an innovative sourcing calendar or intake platform without my team understanding the ‘why’ behind it and how to actually use it,” she said. “Adoption is critical.”
That practical approach helped guide one of the organization’s biggest recent accomplishments: a successful 18-month Workday integration project that transitioned the health system from its legacy Lawson ERP platform into a completely rebuilt operating environment.
Owens joined the project during its early phases and helped oversee the remaining implementation process, which impacted finance, supply chain, information systems and numerous other departments across the organization.
“It was a huge success,” Owens said, noting that consultants involved in the rollout described it as one of the best implementations they had seen.
She said one of the most rewarding parts of the project was seeing organization-wide adoption take shape. Procurement metrics showed purchase order activity steadily increasing as users adapted to the new platform, reflecting the extensive communication and collaboration that supported the transition.
Even with the complexities of an enterprise-wide go-live — which occurred the day after Easter — Owens said teams worked together to quickly address backend issues and keep operations running smoothly.
Looking ahead, Owens is particularly excited about the role artificial intelligence could play in healthcare supply chain operations. She sees opportunities for AI to improve sourcing workflows, automate repetitive tasks and strengthen decision-making capabilities.
One initiative she is especially interested in developing is a dynamic sourcing calendar that could integrate contract lifecycle management data with market intelligence, supplier disruptions, recalls and fulfillment trends to generate actionable insights.
“That’s the exciting part for me,” Owens said. “It’s still relatively untapped, and organizations really have the ability to shape it into something meaningful.”
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