MYRIAD GENETICS ·  SERVICE DESIGN STRATEGY  ·  EMR INTEGRATION  ·  ORG DESIGN

From Research to Org Design:
Launching Service Design Strategy at Myriad

The context

The healthcare market was shifting. Independent practices were consolidating into large health systems, and Myriad Genetics needed to change how it sold, integrated, and delivered genetic testing services to keep pace. Large institutions don't buy the way small practices do — they have complex EMR environments, sophisticated procurement processes, and clinical workflows that require deep partnership, not just a product handoff.

Myriad had been doing point-to-point EMR integrations — one at a time, slowly, without a scalable model. Epic integrations were especially complex: each health system customizes its Epic instance differently, creating enormous variability. The integration backlog was growing. Sales teams felt lost in technical conversations. Customers were waiting — or walking.

What sparked the initiative

A research initiative I led with a product management partner set out to understand why Myriad was not winning in the large accounts space. We interviewed 10 people — 7 sales representatives and 3 technology partners — to understand what was breaking down and where.

The findings revealed a system full of unclear roles, disconnected handoffs, and a technology team building integrations without visibility into clinical workflows or customer needs. Sales leadership heard the findings and responded immediately — they recognized what we were describing because they were living it.

The recommendations pointed to a structural gap: Myriad needed a dedicated function to sit at the intersection of customer clinical workflows, EMR technology, and internal operations. That function didn't exist.

Building the function: the Service Product Organization

The research created the conditions for a new organizational structure. The Service Product Organization was built to own the EMR integration lifecycle end-to-end — with dedicated functions for each layer of the problem.

I was the first service designer in this structure. With leadership's confidence, I grew the team to four Service Design Strategists — each assigned two to three top accounts selected for their ROI potential, strategic opportunity, and interest in collaborative partnership.

The customer mapping work

Service designers went deep with their assigned health systems. On-site visits and remote sessions with providers, genetic counselors, nurse practitioners, and clinical staff. The work had a consistent shape:

The capability gaps surfaced through this work were consistent across customers. The same unmet needs appeared again and again:

The Epic Pull Through research

Having an EMR integration doesn't guarantee orders flow through it. A year into the work, we had integrations live at major institutions — but order volume wasn't where it needed to be. The question became: why aren't providers using what we built?

I led a focused research initiative to find out. Over one month, I conducted 12 remote video interviews with customers across 12 different health institutions — talking to the people actually using the integrations every day. The questions were direct: How did the build go? How was the launch? How is it going now? What are we missing?

The research produced a journey map across the integration lifecycle and a prioritization framework of the gaps that most directly affected order volume. Eight recommendations emerged — ranked by impact, feasibility, and the frequency with which they appeared across customer conversations.

The C-suite presentation

I presented the findings and recommendations to Myriad's C-suite alongside the Director of the Service Product Organization. The presentation led with the customer's voice — qualitative research, direct quotes, patterns that made the gaps undeniable.

There was no resistance. The Chief Operations Officer and the Director of Large Accounts Sales reached out directly after the session. The research gave leadership the evidence they needed to make an investment decision with confidence.

The pivot: turning inward

After about a year of customer-facing mapping work, a new pattern was emerging. The gaps we were finding with health systems weren't always solvable through better integration design — they were being created by Myriad's own internal systems and processes. A CRM that hadn't been meaningfully updated in decades. Operational workflows that had accumulated complexity no one had ever mapped end-to-end.

I recommended a pivot: shift the Service Design Strategy team's focus from customer-facing current/future state mapping to internal capability auditing. My director agreed.

The work looked different from the outside but used the same methods: observing internal operational teams, interviewing staff, mapping workflows, and surfacing the gaps that were creating friction for customers — before customers ever saw them.

Impact

• Service Design Strategy function built from the ground up

• Service Product Organization established as a recognized enterprise function, creating the first dedicated Product EMR integration team at Myriad

• Customer mapping work conducted across top accounts, each assigned to a dedicated service designer for deep partnership

• Capability gap list built from customer research became a standing business case that directly influenced the product roadmap

• Epic Pull Through research led to five CEO- and CCO-funded capability investment areas

• Sales teams more engaged and confident in technical conversations. The team reported higher satisfaction and comfort working with an EMR focused team

• Service Design Strategy team later expanded scope to include new product development and enterprise improvement work, a direct result of the credibility built through this initiative