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Healthcare can’t be technologically ready for AI until it’s emotionally ready first.

In this episode of The Signal Room, host Chris Hutchins sits down with Susie Brannigan — a trauma-informed nurse executive, Just Culture leader, and AI ethics advocate — to explore the human readiness gap in healthcare transformation.

Susie explains why trust must be rebuilt before new systems (Epic, AI, automation) can succeed, and how leaders can shift culture from blame to learning, from burnout to belonging. Drawing from real unit experience and frontline realities, she breaks down what emotionally safe leadership looks like during implementation, why “pilot” language often erodes credibility, and how Just Culture + trauma-informed leadership create the psychological safety required for change.

We also discuss where AI can genuinely help clinicians (and where it can go too far), including guardrails for empathy, presence, and patient-facing AI interactions. If you’re leading digital transformation, managing workforce fatigue, or trying to implement AI without losing your people, this conversation is a practical guide.

Key topics covered

• The human readiness gap: emotional readiness before technological readiness
• Trust erosion in healthcare leadership and why it blocks adoption
• Epic implementation lessons: skill gaps, overtime, and unit-level support
• What Just Culture is and how it reduces fear and turnover
• Trauma-informed leadership and psychological safety on high-acuity units
• Emotional intelligence alongside data literacy as a core leadership skill
• Designing AI with empathy, guardrails, and clinical accountability
• Practical advice for leaders: rounding with purpose, supporting staff, choosing sub-leaders

Chapters

00:00 Emotional readiness and the human readiness gap
01:10 Why implementations fail without trust
07:20 Epic vs AI: why this shift feels different
09:10 What Just Culture is and why it works
11:20 Trauma-informed leadership and secondary trauma
19:40 Emotional intelligence in tech-driven environments
22:10 AI, empathy, and guardrails for patient-facing tools
29:30 Coaching and simulation: preparing nurses for crisis care
34:40 Leadership advice for AI-era change
38:20 How to connect with Susie Brannigan
42:10 Closing

Connect with Susie Brannigan

• LinkedIn: Susie Brannigan
• Business page: Susie Brannigan Consulting
  (Susie shares culture assessments, Just Culture training, trauma-informed training, and leadership support across healthcare and other industries.)

If this episode resonated, share it with a leader who’s trying to implement change without losing trust. The future of healthcare transformation depends on psychological safety.

Stay curious. Stay human.

#JustCulture #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare

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