Heather Hansen
Heather Hansen is a seasoned healthcare education and digital adoption leader with over 30 years of experience spanning emergency services, K–12 education, higher education, and healthcare. She currently serves as Delivery Office Education Engagement Owner at Banner Health, where she leads enterprise learning strategies, clinician education, and clinical adoption programs. Selected to participate in CHIME (College of Healthcare Information Management Executives), Heather collaborates with national healthcare IT leaders to advance innovation, streamline workflows, and ensure successful technology implementation across healthcare systems.
Throughout her career, Heather has championed learner-centered and human-focused approaches, designing differentiated education that addresses cognitive overload and emotional demands on clinicians. Her expertise includes enterprise learning architecture, knowledge governance, change management, and workflow standardization. She is recognized for improving time-to-competency, enhancing provider confidence, reducing operational risk, and strengthening patient safety through accessible and standardized learning ecosystems. Heather’s leadership style emphasizes collaboration, empowerment, and presence—working closely alongside teams to guide, support, and enable success.
Heather’s professional journey reflects a lifelong commitment to education and service. She holds multiple master’s degrees in curriculum and instruction and educational administration, as well as STEM certifications through Georgia Tech. Beyond her professional work, she volunteers with organizations such as the Humane Society and Arts Wave, fostering community engagement and arts education. Heather advises young women to remain open-minded, cultivate analytical and human-centered skills, seek challenging mentors, and build sustaining networks, all while embracing personal growth and imperfection.
• PMI course
• CSUB - MEd
• Administrator of year
• CHIME
• Arts Wave
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a hands-on, team-focused approach to leadership. I make it a priority to work alongside my team, guiding and empowering them while fostering an environment of care and understanding. By investing in their growth and capabilities, I enable them to take ownership and lead with confidence.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say never, ever close a door, never underestimate your value of how you think. Be strategic. There's an advantageous way of harnessing effectively what you do. If you ever want to be a leader, analytical rigor and human insight are essential. Cultivate both of those. Always seek mentors who challenge you. Look to grow, never stop. The more you learn, the more you know, you realize you don't know, right? Network with people that sustain you and fill your cup. Focus on developing more of who you are and your imperfections, because that's relatable, rather than trying to be perfect.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say the biggest opportunity is the pace at which healthcare is changing. It is changing at such a high demand that we have to make sure it's not the technology that saves the people, it is the people that save the people. So keeping our healthcare professionals trained and in the know is super important. That is an opportunity right now. We have to make sure we're ahead of the game and we prioritize that communication, those frameworks early enough, and we have strong teams so we can sustain performance and avoid burnout. One of the biggest things right now is burnout, physician fatigue, and burnout with the amount of change we have in healthcare.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In my work and personal life, I think empathy and respect for human limits are really important. My son has neurodivergence and is crippled with OCD, and he has inspired me. The impact he has given me made me realize that the values we bring, that support, resilience, and perspective, are really where I try to go. I want to be approachable and open and caring. These are values that are so important to me. More importantly, that ability to make sure we do not judge. We need to be open. So that value of a judgment-free zone and listening, really trying to say 'tell me more' and not closing the door, being very open is a huge value. We only know what we know and what we're going through. We don't understand others until we let them give themselves to us in their way and tell us. It's very important to me to keep that open door and not just judge or close down, because I came from a culture where that was the practice, and I have certainly learned a lot along the way. I'm really, really happy that I changed the history.