Emily Kagan Trenchard

Emily Kagan Trenchard is a writer, thinker, and leader of digital product design teams. Passionate about shaping the intersection of technology and society, Emily has spent her career building digital tools to help patients navigate the complexities of the American medical system. She currently serves as VP of Digital and Innovation Strategy for New York state’s largest health system, Northwell Health. She leads product strategy, analytics, research and design for Northwell Health’s Digital Patient Experience program. A long-time champion of the importance of human factors and user experience, Emily started Northwell’s first UX department to help shape the design of its digital properties. Before joining the Digital Patient Experience program, Emily led Northwell’s web, social and digital signage properties. Along with transforming these properties as part of a critically acclaimed brand launch, Emily spearheaded a re-platforming of Northwell’s websites to an open source stack, helping the company save hundreds of thousands of dollars in software licensing costs. The move to open source also enabled the growth of an award-winning software development group whose applications include one of the first-ever healthcare uses of an Amazon Alexa skill. Prior to joining Northwell Emily led web systems for New York City’s Lenox Hill Hospital where she drove the development of many early consumer health tools, including the first-ever implementation of the ZocDoc scheduling platform for a hospital. Emily is an accomplished poet, speaker and a graduate of MIT’s graduate program in science writing. It is this unique set of experiences that drive Emily to continually explore the effects of technology, language and design on the ways we care for one another.