Leading Multi-Hospital Alignment in a High-Stakes Service Transition

When mandated budget reductions affected UVM Health, the organization made the difficult decision to close its kidney transplant surgery program — a service that roughly twelve patients depended on each year. The stakes could not have been higher: transplant patients are among the most medically vulnerable populations, and geographic access to care in rural Vermont is already limited.

Rather than simply winding down the service, leadership pursued a more patient-centered path: a partnership with Dartmouth Health that would allow Vermont patients to continue receiving pre- and post-operative transplant care close to home, while surgical procedures moved to Dartmouth's Lebanon, New Hampshire campus.

I was brought in as the Senior Healthcare Experience Designer to lead the design and facilitation of this partnership from the inside — turning an institutional mandate into a human-centered, collaboratively built transition plan.