Clinical data sits at the center of nearly every decision a modern health system makes, which patients need follow-up, which processes are failing, which programs are actually working. But access to that data is rarely as simple as asking for it. Behind every request is a stretched team trying their best to serve an entire organization and physician workforce, and behind every physician's frustration is months of waiting for numbers that may no longer reflect what's happening in their department by the time they arrive.

When UVM Health's Data Management Office (DMO) leadership decided to address this head-on, they didn't come asking for a faster ticketing system or a new dashboard. They wanted to understand why two teams who depended on each other so completely had stopped trusting one another and they were willing to sit in a room together and find out.