The healthcare sector in the United States is working to adapt to the modern era as the world continues to migrate further into the digital realm. Andrea Fletcher, the first-ever chief digital strategy officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spoke to Executive Mosaic about how she sees digital transformation within her agency.

Andrea Fletcher is scheduled to keynote the 2023 Healthcare Summit hosted by the Potomac Officers Club on Dec. 6. Don’t miss this day of networking, learning and relationship building with the country’s foremost healthcare experts and decision makers. Register here.

“I often think about how my grandparents signed up for Medicare, which would have been in person at a Social Security office filling out a paper form,” Fletcher told Executive Mosaic’s Summer Myatt during an exclusive video interview. “And that is very different from what my parents will likely do and how I will likely sign up.”

“The expectations of the American people is now that they can go to a website and use an online form to sign up for Medicare or to fill out information for the government. People want to download an app and be able to access their data instantly or to be able to do it online or on their phone or tablet or whatever device they have, which is very different in how we provide government services,” she added.

As CMS and the broader federal healthcare ecosystem continues to pursue digital transformation, health leaders are focusing more on not just digitizing existing processes but reimagining them for the online world.

“When I think about digital transformation, I think about the services and the programs that we run as government agencies and how those are moving into an online world or ecosystem, and how we are not just taking the paper form and putting it on the Internet, but really thinking about the processes and how people engage with different government services,” said Fletcher.

Hear more insights from Andrea Fletcher about digital transformation efforts within CMS — watch her full video interview here, and be sure to register for the Dec. 6 Healthcare Summit for your chance to hear from her in person.