At this year’s Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™, Verato CEO Clay Ritchey sat down with Aaron Miri, EVP and Chief Digital & Information Officer of Baptist Health, and Todd Crosslin, Global Industry Principal for Healthcare and Life Sciences at Snowflake, for a packed final-day session on one of the most pressing challenges in modern enterprises: how to build trustworthy data foundations for the age of AI.
Their message was clear — you can’t power AI or digital transformation until you solve identity.
The bedrock of trust: Knowing Who Is Who™
In a world where every digital initiative depends on data, identity resolution has quietly become the keystone of enterprise success. As Aaron Miri described it, identity is “the seat of the stool” that connects people, process, and technology. Without it, everything else wobbles.
For Baptist Health, that truth became urgent as the organization modernized its systems and data infrastructure. The goal went beyond digital housekeeping. It was to truly know patients, staff, and providers across a sprawling regional network.
“Our patients told us exactly what they wanted,” said Miri. “They held up their phones and said, get to know me here.”
By integrating Verato’s referential identity data into Snowflake’s data cloud, Baptist Health built a foundation that allows the health system to understand every person across millions of records and dozens of systems accurately, securely, and in real time.
From patients to consumers: Reimagining experience in healthcare
Healthcare generates 30% of the world’s data, yet only a fraction of it is used effectively to improve care or experience. Utilizing this wealth of information in a holistic way is becoming more urgent as today’s patients expect the same personalized, seamless experiences they know from other industries.
This shift is forcing healthcare to think differently about its consumers. Increasingly, providers are being asked to treat patients like retail customers—personalizing outreach, improving access, and building trust.
Todd Crosslin explained that this transformation depends on identity as the bridge between fragmented systems: “Across healthcare, you’ve got the same patient represented 50 different ways. You can’t engage them confidently or gain their trust until you unify that data and know it’s the same person.”
That trust, he said, is also what enables organizations to safely and responsibly bring AI into the experience.
AI that serves people: From efficiency to humanity
While much of the conversation at Gartner centered on AI, the panel agreed that AI success depends on humility, courage, and precision.
“AI and digital transformation will only succeed if you define the problem statement with crystal clarity,” said Miri. “You can’t boil the ocean. Solve for something specific, apply AI appropriately, and build from there.”
Baptist Health has done exactly that by deploying AI to improve patient safety and even combat human trafficking. A machine learning model now helps clinicians flag potential trafficking victims who might otherwise go unnoticed. Since launching, the algorithm has helped save over 100 children. This is just one example of how AI can support healthcare providers in providing holistic care.
What’s happening in healthcare mirrors what’s unfolding across industries, from financial services to retail to the public sector. Every organization is trying to unify its data, automate insights, and deliver personalized engagement at scale. But the same challenge appears again and again: fragmented, duplicate, and incomplete data about people.
As Crosslin put it, “whether you’re talking about patients, consumers, suppliers, or members, identity is what makes AI use cases possible.”
Take Fidelity, for example—a joint Verato and Snowflake customer preparing for the largest transfer of wealth in U.S. history. By resolving identity across data silos, Fidelity can see who future benefactors are likely to be and start building relationships today.
Where to start: The crawl-walk-run of AI readiness
For many organizations, the question isn’t if they’ll adopt AI—it’s how to get ready. The answer, the panel agreed, starts with data fidelity and identity trust.
- Crawl: Clean, connect, and govern your data with a trusted identity layer.
- Walk: Integrate the unified data into systems of insight, like Snowflake, to enable analytics and automation.
- Run: Confidently activate AI models that deliver personalized experiences, operational efficiency, and innovation.
As Ritchey summarized, “First things first—focus on identity. It’s what makes your data trustworthy, your AI effective, and your experiences exceptional.”
Watch the full session and hear firsthand how healthcare innovators are making a difference.
