Transforming the patient experience digitally
Health care administration graduate student Cara O’Donnell looks at how hospital culture impacts patients’ experiences through its electronic health care records system.
By Karen Carlo Ruhren
While training for the Chicago Marathon in 2018, Cara O’Donnell ’26 (M) knew something was wrong. A chronic illness was crashing down on her physical and mental spirit, and not even an event as big as a marathon could keep her in the race. O’Donnell pulled out and made the difficult decision to move forward instead with three major surgeries for ulcerative colitis: an autoimmune disease that can become debilitating and even fatal if not treated. The Suffolk University graduate placed all her faith in her physicians and surgical team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and all her energy on a grueling but wonderfully successful recuperation.
“The experience will always be with me,” said O’Donnell. “It’s my why.”
More than seven years later, O’Donnell is not only connected to Mass General Brigham as a patient success story, but she is now part of the Mass General Brigham Health System team. She serves as a portfolio manager responsible for assessing how the hospital’s culture impacts patients’ experiences through its electronic health care records system.
“I wanted to work for the same organization that gave me my life back,” said O’Donnell.
Simultaneously, O’Donnell is completing her graduate program at Salve Regina University—slated to earn her master’s in health care administration and a graduate certificate in health care leadership in May 2026.
“I see every project at Mass General Brigham through the lens of the patient, and this was all strengthened by Salve,” she said. “I chose Salve because it emphasizes compassion as part of its mercy mission.” O’Donnell was also impressed with the health care administration program’s complete online offering, allowing her to maintain her work at Mass General Brigham and still meet one-on-one in synchronous, meaningful virtual classrooms.
O’Donnell credits Dr. Anna Matos-Mournighan, lecturer and graduate program director of business and economics, and adjunct professor Louis Pugliese for instilling a sense of integrity into all of her coursework. Pugliese’s course, HCA525: Ethics for Health Professionals, in particular resonates with O’Donnell. “That experience of connecting with a small class and examining how we can relate our work to the real world is unmatched, in my opinion,” she said.
These ‘real-world’ scenarios in O’Donnell’s workday are varied and often involve working with multiple departments. This might include managing patient flow in the case of an emergency department with a bed shortage, ensuring protocols are in place to protect clinicians from violent patients or enhancing the virtual “MyChart” experience to improve patient-doctor communication.
“We’re behind the scenes, but we really impact patient care,” she noted. “Digital records, especially in the past decade, are a new world and are changing the way we do health care,” O’Donnell explained. And she believes the pairing of her job experience and her graduate program at Salve has seamlessly helped her achieve this goal. “I like to say we drive transformation.”
Still, what drives O’Donnell is, and always will be, her intimate knowledge of the patient experience based on her years in that capacity at Mass General Brigham. In fact, she has taken her advocacy for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation to the next level, being crowned Miss Massachusetts for America 2025 with the platform “Transforming the Patient Experience Digitally.” She later placed among the nation’s top 15 at the Miss for America Strong Pageant in Las Vegas through the Mrs. America Organization. In 2026, she plans to compete again for the Miss Massachusetts title through the Miss Universe Organization. O’Donnell sees the platforms as a chance to raise awareness and donations for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis disease, which affect roughly three million people in the United States.
When she is not on the pageant circuit or at work, O’Donnell still finds time for distance road races. In 2022, she re-trained and completed the Chicago Marathon that had previously eluded her, and in September 2026 she aims to run another marathon in Berlin, Germany.
But her passion for patient care is number one. “I have a deep respect for Salve. It has given me the tools to translate my knowledge into action. I actually can apply what I learn from class the following morning at work,” O’Donnell said. “At the end of the day it’s all about helping our patients.”
