The Beat Rethinking Virtual Care and AI with Tammy Cress, SVP of Clinical Solutions and Innovation at Teladoc Health
Virtual care is no longer just about access. It is now becoming the infrastructure layer that helps health systems reduce fragmentation, strengthen workplace safety, and scale digital care more intelligently.
In this episode, Tammy Cress, Senior Vice President of Clinical Solutions and Innovation at Teladoc Health, discusses how health systems can move beyond fragmented telehealth strategies and start building more sustainable, integrated models of digital care. She explains how Teladoc is layering responsible AI onto its virtual care infrastructure through its Clarity solution, which helps sense, synthesize, and route the right information to the right care team member at the right time. Tammy also shares why workplace safety is one of the most urgent and practical use cases for these tools, how fragmented digital investments continue to drain staff and budgets, and why strategy, governance, and thoughtful alignment matter more than ever as organizations move from pilots to scalable transformation.
Tune in and learn how health systems can rethink virtual care and AI adoption in ways that are more proactive, sustainable, and grounded in what truly matters.
About Tammy Cress:
Tammy Cress, RN, MSN, is Senior Vice President of Clinical Solutions and Innovation at Teladoc Health, where she leads the development of healthcare solutions designed to meet real market needs and support growth across complex care environments. A nurse by training and a military veteran, Tammy brings deep experience in telehealth strategy, operations, and innovation. Before her current role, she held multiple leadership positions at Teladoc, Providence Health & Services, and Swedish, where she helped design, scale, and operationalize telehealth programs across multi-state health systems. Her background spans clinical operations, business operations, governance, product strategy, and service delivery, with a consistent focus on aligning technology investments to patient needs, frontline realities, and long-term organizational success.
Things You’ll Learn:
- Fragmented telehealth investments can create unnecessary strain for care teams, even when individual tools appear to deliver good results.
- Responsible AI can help reduce bedside cognitive burden by sensing what is happening in care environments and sending the right alerts to the right people.
- Workplace safety is a major healthcare challenge, and smarter room-based technology can help organizations become more proactive instead of reactive.
- AI and virtual care programs are more likely to scale when leadership aligns governance structures instead of treating digital tools as separate initiatives.
- Health systems need a clear strategy, stronger alignment, and a fresh look at prior investments if they want to move from pilots to sustainable transformation.
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