From small-town Texas to the Midwest’s heart of health IT, Cardamom Manager of Delivery David Gibson has followed a winding path driven by curiosity, impact, and a love of solving complex problems. With roots in IT and a background that spans Epic, surgical software development, and now Cardamom, David brings his expertise and leadership to every project. We sat down with him to learn more about his journey into health IT, what drew him to Cardamom, and how he’s helping healthcare organizations use data and AI to deliver better care.
What’s your background? How did you get into health IT?
I grew up in South Texas and graduated from Texas A&M with degrees in computer information systems and marketing. I worked for the small town where I went to college as their solo IT person, and after college I stumbled across Epic while job hunting; it seemed like an interesting company. I saw it was based in Wisconsin, and I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to move to somewhere that cold. However, it seemed like such a great opportunity, and a chance to do something different while making a difference at the same time. So, I took the leap and moved to the frozen tundra that is Wisconsin. At Epic, at first, I was on the inpatient technical support (TS) team. Then I moved to OpTime, and eventually I helped launch and grow the anesthesia TS team. I ended up being at Epic for nine years. After my time at Epic, I joined a small, family-owned company that currently develops and supports the #1 software that tracks sterile instruments being used during surgeries. I joined as a software developer, eventually leading the software development team, while also getting the chance to lead a complete UI redesign. In that role, I was actually able to stay in touch with my Epic roots because that specific software integrated closely with Epic’s surgery scheduling.
How did you end up at Cardamom?
The small, family-owned company I was working at happened to be purchased by a large organization, and it lost the family-feeling that originally drew me to it. During my time there, I realized that I loved wearing a lot of hats. Once it was sold to the larger organization, my role became a bit narrower; I missed the variety of work that came with working for a smaller company. I reached out to some of my old colleagues from Epic, two of whom were Sriram and Vivek. (I was actually Sriram’s mentor at Epic, and Vivek and I started at Epic right around the same time and were in a lot of training classes together.) They told me about all the cool stuff that Cardamom was working on and the type of workplace they were going to build, and it just seemed like it was the right fit for me at the right time. So, I hopped onboard Cardamom in Nov. 2024.
What does your day-to-day work at Cardamom look like?
Part of the fun of working for a smaller organization is the variety in the work; no two days or projects are ever the same. Since we work in a team- and project-based atmosphere, I get to work with different teams and different customers each day, helping to solve a variety of challenges. I work a lot with data and discovering ways to help our customers tap into it for maximum value. So, some days I’m coding in Python to help our customers get access to insights that will allow them to make better decisions, often using AI in the solution; other days I’m applying LLM-based tools, delivering things like chatbots, so their teams can find important information without writing new reports. And depending on the project, we can pull in people as needed so that we have the best minds to solve these challenges. It’s just a great atmosphere to grow and provide mentorship.
Why healthcare?
What originally drew me to healthcare is the same reason I’ve stayed in this industry for so long: I really enjoy making a difference and seeing how the work that I do can have a positive impact on patient’s lives. It’s really cool how I can create a tool, a process, or a new service for a customer to use in their day-to-day work and know that it’s going to help their clinicians and the care they’re able to give. Not being a medical provider myself, it’s a really great feeling knowing that the work I do can still have such a positive impact on patients. That’s what keeps me going.
What is life on Team Cardamom like?
Our dual mission and core values really do drive how we work with each other. Because we’re project-based and outcomes-focused, we can pull in teammates with different levels and types of expertise as needed versus having to worry about how many hours to bill back to the customer. That’s really unique in the consulting world. Since we have a very collaborative environment, everyone here is always willing to jump in to help solve our customer’s challenges. I love working shoulder to shoulder with amazingly talented people who are also kind and gracious, willing to give advice or help each other out. It’s definitely a growth environment, a true team atmosphere where we can grow collectively. We also lean into the fact that we’re a technology-forward company. We’re tapping into AI, automation, and other new technologies to not only improve our customers’ systems, but our own as well. It’s a really exciting time to be a part of a growing, innovating company like Cardamom.
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