"We Can't Have 10 Number Ones": Dr. Everett Weiss on Why Focus Comes Before AI
TOPICS: Leadership & Workforce Development · AI & Machine Learning RELEVANT TO: CIOs, CMIOs, CNIOs, and health IT leaders shaping AI governance, clinician wellness, or organizational prioritization strategy
Dr. Everett Weiss believes most organizations do not fail from a lack of good ideas. They fail because they refuse to choose between them.
Weiss is Medical Director, Health Informaticist at Rochester Regional Health, and that philosophy shapes how Rochester Regional approaches trust, clinician wellness, and AI adoption.
The Definition of Priority Is One
Weiss has a specific frustration with how health systems talk about priorities: everyone calls everything important, and that is exactly the problem.
"The definition of priority is one, number one. We can't have 10 number ones," he said.
He pointed to the pandemic as the clearest recent example of what focus looks like in practice. When Rochester Regional had one or two clear priorities instead of a dozen competing ones, people stopped protecting their own lane and started working together, because the bandwidth fight disappeared.
That same discipline, according to Weiss, is what rebuilds trust once it breaks. Promising less and delivering on it consistently does more for a clinical workforce than any wellness initiative layered on from the outside.
Burnout as an Organizational Problem, Not a Technology One
When Rochester Regional built its clinician wellness program, Weiss and his team made a decision that runs against a lot of conventional wisdom: they did not treat the EHR as the primary driver of burnout.
"Technology actually ends up being a very small factor, and it's usually a symptom of all of the processes that are being asked of all of our providers across the system," Weiss explained.
That reframing kept the program from becoming a point solution aimed at a single tool. Instead, the team looked at the full set of demands on a provider's day, the same lens Weiss applies to organizational priorities generally, and asked where the system could reduce burden rather than simply relocate it.
A Clear Filter for Every AI Decision
That philosophy shapes how Weiss thinks about AI in general. The question comes first, before the technology.
"AI is a tool to help us deliver solutions to problems that we are trying to solve. So the most important thing that we have to ask ourselves is, what problem are we trying to solve?" Weiss asked.
He runs that question at every level, from an individual provider's workflow up to system-wide strategy, and uses it as the gate for adoption. If a use case does not map to a defined problem, Weiss holds off applying the technology to it, no matter how capable he believes it may be.
What the Ambient Scribing Pilot Actually Changed
That same discipline is what shaped Rochester Regional's ambient documentation rollout, and why Weiss says it produced one of the strongest provider responses he has seen. The health system ran an ambient digital scribing pilot across more than 300 providers.
"Providers are saying this is the first technology in their entire career that has had a meaningful impact on their day-to-day," according to Weiss.
Weiss said the benefit comes less from reducing documentation time than from reducing the cognitive burden providers carry throughout the day. He is careful to separate the metric people expect from the one he believes matters most.
"It's not about reducing that time, it's about increasing the time to do the things that matter most," he added.
Weiss said providers have told him they are having lunch with colleagues for the first time in years, or that they are simply home for dinner again.
The Advice He Would Give His Younger Self
The same discipline Weiss applies to organizations also shapes how he thinks about leadership. Asked what he would tell himself earlier in his career, he did not point to strategy or informatics at all.
"Stay true to yourself, and make time for yourself," Weiss reflected. "You will be at your best when you do the things that you love, when you pursue the things that you enjoy and that you're really passionate about. And you need that time to be able to recharge to be that best for everyone else."
The Takeaway
Trust, burnout, and AI adoption read as separate challenges on paper. For Weiss, they trace back to the same discipline: choosing what matters most, then making sure the organization delivers on it. As he put it, "Stay true to yourself."
