A Conversation with 2026 IGNITE Award Honoree Kathy Spangler

In today's episode of the Fed to Fed podcast, we sit down with IGNITE 2026 honoree Dr. Kathy Spangler from Maximus, as she reflects on the power of innovation, impact, and purposeful change. 

In this conversation, we’ll explore the journey behind transformational leadership, the mindset needed to drive meaningful progress, and the emerging opportunities shaping the future of government and industry, with an emphasis on creating a better patient experience across government healthcare. 

Thanks for listening! Would you like to know more about us? Follow our LinkedIn page! 

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to a Driving Healthcare Effectiveness and Efficiency episode of the Fed to Fed podcast by GovTech Connects. This special series, brought to you in collaboration with Maximus, focuses on best practices for meeting evolving health needs and improving citizen experience by combining advanced technology and human centered design principles. We'll explore how emerging technologies can drive transformation in a way that effectively and efficiently delivers health services, programs, and systems with flexibility, security, scale, and human connection. Welcome to today's episode, part of a series featuring ignite 2026 honorees for Maximus, where each guest reflects on the power of innovation, impact and purposeful change. In this conversation, we'll explore the journey behind transformational leadership, the mindset needed to drive meaningful progress, and the emerging opportunities shaping the future of government and industry. Hey, Kathy, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. It Susan, I'm so excited about this discussion with you. And I'd like to jump right in right now with the first question. As in ignite 2026 honoree, you were recognized as a transformational leader who's able to leverage their unique leadership skills and expertise to accelerate innovation and measurable impact. Tell us a little bit about your journey and how that path has led you to where you are today. Sure. So I career has always been centered around just one question, you know, how do we make health care easier for folks to navigate, to get access to it, and then just the overall experience on those that we serve? And that has been fundamentally my my true azimuth, my true north of where I want to go. And the folks I work with. And I began my journey as an Army nurse, caring for service members, their families, retirees bedside. So that was my very first journey, and I loved it. And that was now 30 years ago, actually. And during those almost 30 years of service, I had the opportunity to lead at every level, at direct patient care in the hospitals to operational medicine in a deployed setting, and then culminating in executive leadership roles around the military health care system. And those experience really taught me that great health care isn't just about delivering excellent clinical care, although optimal. It's also about helping those folks successfully navigate that system around the care. And when you're young, you know, service member and your or a military spouse or a retiree and you're having problems experiencing or accessing care, you need to understand how to get to those next steps, you know, coordinate those referrals, and you need to feel supported throughout that journey. And it needs to feel individualized for that person. They don't need to know all the other things, but they need to feel like you are that the most important person for them today. And my experience, especially as a hospital commander and a director, I saw firsthand how even the best health care organizations create friction for patients when the access, coordination, communication and technology just aren't aligned. So today, Maximus, I have that great opportunity to work at the scale of bringing it all together health care, operations, technology, data, and that human centered design to help improve that patient experience across entire populations. It's pretty amazing. And what continues to motivate me is just helping those organizations remove the barriers, reduce the complexity, and create that health care experience. That's easier, making them feel again connected and ultimately like they deserve the care that these are the people we serve and they deserve that, that the best, most optimal care. So that's kind of what got me started. That's awesome Kathy, thank you for sharing that with us. So as you look to the future, what's the next big challenge, your opportunity you're setting your sights on? So I believe one of the greatest opportunities in health care is improving that overall patient experience by, as I mentioned earlier, just making it easier to access, easier to navigate, and making that patient feel more connected. You know, having input from them make meeting the patient where they are. At our years, we've always focused on improving the quality of care delivered inside, like the hospitals and the clinics. And it should be so. But patients are their biggest frustrations is happening outside that clinical setting. It's getting just an appointment, understanding where to go next, how are they getting that referral that they just got from their provider for dermatology and getting to the right specialist, you know, how long is it going to take them? Is it a, you know, ten days, 30 days, 60 days, you know, how do we help them navigate this complex health care system? And for me, that opportunity head is to connect all those experiences into a seamless patient experience. Make it the journey just easy. You pick up the phone, you call, you say, hey, I'm trying to get my primary care point. And then the person on the other end says, oh, you know, glad you called. We're here to help you. Oh, I see you have a dermatology referral. Can I help you also get that schedule? Like everything happens all at once. And again, that patient feeling like they're the most important person, which it should be. We got we have that opportunity to use technology data and that better care coordination to help reduce all that friction. We can anticipate their needs and provide them the support that they deserve before they even fall through the cracks. So what really excites me is now in this role is using technology not just the solution itself, but as an enabler. So we want we want folks again, everybody's at a different journey with using technology. So again, we need to meet the patient where they are. But we want them to feel connected, coordinated, want them to have that personalized experience and make it easier for them to navigate. They can focus on getting healthy or staying healthy wherever they are in their healthcare journey. And as we look into that future, I believe a lot of the organizations will make the greatest impact if they just connect the people. You'll hear this a lot the people, the process, the technology and the data into health care experience. That's proactive. And again, most importantly for me, centered on that patient and meeting them where he or she is at. So and in my military career, I had the opportunity to see that. And now within Maximus, I hopefully and part of the solutions to help enable that, it impacts readiness, right, for for that service member as well. And their family members. Thank you so much for sharing that. So you discussed your focus on improving the access and care navigation for military readiness. Where do you see the biggest opportunities to connect data care and coordination for improving readiness? Sure. I think when I think about it, readiness starts just with access, you know, getting them whatever appointment they need or whatever issues going on its. And then you know, we're talking about military healthcare. It's a service member. They can't get the right appointment. But it also affects their their family members that are trying to get in as well because that will affect them ultimately. Because if a family member can't get in like it's a it's a loop, it just keeps going. But we want to make sure they get the right appointment, whatever referrals going on for any specialty care. All of this gets timely follow up, and readiness is impacted long before they even enter the hospital or the clinic setting. Like we have to get them from day one. And I think that biggest opportunity is connecting the data that already exists across all the healthcare ecosystem and making it real time for that patient journey. So imagine being able to see kind of like I mentioned before, where referrals are being stuck, where patient demand is the highest. Maybe I could surge. And if I see that I can't get an appointment for, I'm going to say behavioral health in the National Capital Area. Oh, if the patient wants, I can at least connect them. If they want to go telehealth, maybe someone somewhere else could be in San Antonio. It's understanding that being able to have that heads up dashboard display and see where all of our supply and demand are, and to be able to, at a moment's notice, be able to that person on the other end saying, I can't get you an appointment here, but I see if you're willing, when you have a telehealth appointment, I can get you access over here. And it stays within our whole ecosystem for the military health care system. So those are some of the examples that we could utilize and help military healthcare teammates, you know, be able to see at all times. We combine all of this data, that clinical information, whether it's scheduling, referral, wherever patients are into one view. And we make it more proactive instead of reactive. I think that was something that I've always, you know, sometimes I always feel like I'm following the problem instead of being there before the problem happens. And military healthcare, this would be paramount. And being fewer delays, better continuity of care, I think improve patient experience, obviously. And ultimately it's just a more healthier, mission ready force. So I do think technology plays an important role. But, you know, it's how we use that technology where the patient is at and making sure that the service members and their families, they feel supported, informed and connected throughout the whole entire healthcare journey. That's great. Kathy, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your perspective. And Kathy, also, thank you so much for your leadership over your incredible career with the military health. And we're so excited to see all the incredible things that you and your organization is leading. Oh, thank you Susan. Appreciate you. Thank you for joining us today to find out more about digital innovation for federal health optimization and resilience, visit the Driving Healthcare Effectiveness and Efficiency landing page on GovTech connect.com. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast channel to stay up to date on the latest episodes.