The following is a guest article by Doug Stephen, President at CGS Immersive
Healthcare IT leaders are under growing pressure to do more with less. New technologies promise game-changing outcomes — AI for diagnostics, cloud migration for scalability, cybersecurity platforms to protect patient data — but budgets haven’t kept pace with the need for innovation.
According to a 2024 report from Kaufman Hall, hospitals continue to allocate only 2.7% to 3.5% of their total expenses to IT, and most are cautious with capital spending. As the competition for funding intensifies, IT leaders must not only identify transformative technologies but also convince non-technical stakeholders why a particular investment is mission-critical. These are high-stakes conversations that can determine the future of a project — or an entire strategic roadmap.
But here’s the problem: while most IT professionals are trained in systems, infrastructure, and architecture, few are trained in persuasive communication, stakeholder alignment, or business-case storytelling. In today’s healthcare environment, those soft skills are no longer optional. They are the make-or-break factor in getting buy-in.
Practice Before You Pitch: The Role of Immersive Simulation
This is where immersive role-play training is emerging as a powerful tool. Think of it as a flight simulator — not for surgery or emergency codes — but for the budget committee meeting, the AI adoption debate, or the physician data-governance pitch.
Immersive role-play simulations let users practice real conversations with virtual personas powered by AI or virtual reality, simulating a CFO, CMO, department chair, or patient safety officer. The avatars react dynamically to what you say, allowing for unscripted, natural exchanges that mirror real life.
Unlike traditional learning, which is passive and often forgettable, immersive role-play is active, experiential, and adaptive. It allows healthcare IT professionals to rehearse complex conversations, try out different approaches, and receive feedback on what worked (or didn’t) before they walk into a real stakeholder meeting.
Why It Works: Confidence, Clarity, and Cost-Effectiveness
The benefits are backed by growing evidence. A PwC study found that learners in VR simulations were 275% more confident applying their skills compared to classroom learners and learned 4× faster. In healthcare contexts, immersive simulation has been shown to improve handling of difficult conversations by up to 40%, while reducing training costs by nearly a third.
Immersive role-play addresses several persistent training gaps:
- Confidence Under Pressure: When staff can practice a conversation with a skeptical “executive,” they’re far more prepared to handle the real version
- Safe Failure: Trainees can experiment, stumble, recover, and refine their message, without real-world consequences
- Better Engagement: Simulations boost emotional connection to the training content, leading to better retention and performance
- Scalability: Once scenarios are created, they can be deployed across a large team, with analytics tracking progress
Use Cases: High-Stakes Conversations in Health IT
What kind of conversations can immersive role-play prepare IT professionals for?
Justifying Capital Expenditures
Whether you’re pitching a new AI triage tool or enterprise data warehouse, your stakeholders will ask: “What’s the ROI? What’s the risk? How will this affect clinicians?” Practicing that conversation in advance, with a virtual CFO persona asking hard questions, can sharpen your responses and improve your odds of success.
Gaining Clinical Buy-In
Convincing clinical leadership to adopt a new tech platform often involves addressing workflow concerns, patient safety, and regulatory alignment. Simulating a conversation with a physician who’s hesitant or change-resistant can help IT leaders develop empathy and refine their messaging to focus on outcomes that matter to care teams.
Crisis Communication
During a system outage or data breach, the way your team communicates matters as much as how they respond technically. Immersive role-play can help leaders rehearse press briefings, staff updates, or regulator calls, delivering messages with clarity and composure when it counts most.
Leading Internal Teams
Managing distributed teams, resolving conflicts, and delivering constructive feedback are part of IT leadership. Simulating these interactions with difficult team-member avatars builds leadership fluency and emotional intelligence.
Beyond Soft Skills: What to Look for in a Platform
To be effective in healthcare settings, immersive role-play platforms like Cicero must do more than look impressive. They must meet the technical, ethical, and operational needs of enterprise health systems. Consider these factors:
- Scenario Flexibility: The ability to create any kind of scenario, from budget approval to vendor negotiation, is crucial; platforms should offer easy editing tools, so teams can model scenarios specific to their environment
- Persona Diversity: The best solutions support a wide range of roles — executives, clinicians, patients — and allow you to change tone, demographic, or intent to match the user’s training objective
- Custom Scoring and Feedback: Look for systems that provide actionable data, scoring conversations based on communication effectiveness, key point coverage, or emotional intelligence; this enables targeted coaching and measurable progress
- Enterprise-Ready Reporting: Training leaders and IT administrators should have access to dashboards, usage data, and LMS integration for tracking performance at scale
- AI and Security Compliance: In a healthcare setting, any AI-powered system must adhere to data privacy and cybersecurity standards. Look for vendors aligned with ISO/IEC 42001, the emerging benchmark for responsible AI governance and risk management
A Smart Investment in People
Digital transformation is as much about people as it is about platforms. While AI tools, analytics engines, and security upgrades get most of the attention, it’s the people behind them — IT leaders, analysts, engineers — who determine whether innovation succeeds or stalls.
Immersive role-play helps healthcare IT professionals master the human side of transformation: persuading stakeholders, navigating resistance, and communicating vision with clarity and confidence.
In a tight-budget environment, the ability to advocate for your ideas and do so persuasively is a strategic advantage. Immersive practice helps you get there.
About Doug Stephen
Doug Stephen is the president of CGS Immersive and a leading expert in leveraging learning methodology and technology to solve critical business challenges. With over two decades of experience consulting with Fortune 1000 companies, he understands what it takes to drive significant improvements in employee engagement, operational performance, and revenue growth. At CGS Immersive, Doug leads the vision and execution of groundbreaking edtech platforms that are transforming the way companies work and learn. He is passionate about helping organizations unlock the full potential of their workforce through the power of immersive technology.
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