DoGood Member Spotlight: Nitin Agarwal
"You have to believe in yourself before anyone else does."
Nitin Agarwal has a simple rule when it comes to vendors: if the only time you reach out is when a renewal invoice is due, you're already on the way out.
Less than a year into his role as CIO at Wayne Memorial Hospital in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, Agarwal has already begun reshaping those relationships. Wayne Memorial is a 120-bed rural community hospital where every investment carries weight and every dollar has a conversation attached to it. In that environment, transactional relationships do not last.
"I want partners that are willing to go in as much as we are. They're not a contract. They're my partners."
Nitin Agarwal, Wayne Memorial HospitalHe understands the distinction because he has spent his career sitting on both sides of the table.
Before becoming CIO, Agarwal spent 13 years building his career as an Epic analyst and specialist across organizations including NYU Langone, Montefiore, and Cincinnati Children's. He progressed through the ranks step by step, eventually becoming a Director of IT before moving into executive leadership. Along the way, he became deeply familiar with the difference between what vendors promise and what they actually deliver during implementation and long-term support.
One challenge he sees repeatedly across healthcare is the industry's tendency to operate in silos.
"Healthcare is probably one of the smallest families that exists in the world with the largest footprint, but they don't talk to each other."
Organizations frequently end up solving the same problems independently, each building its own version of the wheel. Everyone builds the wheel alone. Some build it round. Some build an octagon, and some build a square wheel. Some get it right; others do not. It's one reason Agarwal actively participates on HIMSS and CHIME committees — to learn from peers and avoid reinventing solutions that already exist.
That same mindset shapes his approach to AI procurement.
AI agreements often contain layers of complexity: data usage rights, de-identification requirements, storage terms, and language buried deep in contracts that can have significant downstream implications. Agarwal has seen companies push for signatures before organizations fully understand what they're agreeing to.
"If you're not familiar with what they're actually saying, you miss those things."
His discipline around decisions — and around money — has roots much earlier in life.
Growing up, he watched his father walk to work rather than spend $50 on commuting because that money could instead help the family. Agarwal began working at 15 and learned early to appreciate both effort and opportunity.
His entry into healthcare IT came through an unconventional path: a 600-person casting call at NYU Langone. During the final stage of interviews, candidates were asked to teach the interviewer something — anything at all.
He taught the interviewer how to drive a car.
From there, he never stopped climbing. Every role. Every responsibility. Every rung.
Which is why even he was surprised when he nearly talked himself out of pursuing a CIO position.
"I didn't think it was feasible," he says. "I didn't want the disappointment."
On the drive to his first interview, he called a mentor — a leader he had worked with many years before. Their relationship had not started smoothly, but over time that mentor became one of his strongest advocates.
Sitting in the car, still questioning whether he belonged there, Agarwal admitted his uncertainty.
His mentor gave him advice he still carries today:
"You have to believe in yourself before anyone else does."
Nitin Agarwal, Wayne Memorial HospitalHe got the job.
Today, he still meets with his mentors regularly. "You need to maintain the connection; your mentors can be the strongest forces to help guide you forward. They also go from being mentors to being dear friends."
For professionals in healthcare IT who wonder whether they're ready for the next step, his message is straightforward:
"Take the chance. Believe in yourself. Really believe you can do it. Evaluate yourself in the quiet of the night, when you can truly think it through. And if you feel this is the right path, go for it — what's the worst that would happen."
This has been a DoGood Member Spotlight.
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