This paper shares key lessons for successfully deploying NLP solutions in healthcare settings, drawing on our experience implementing various NLP models for information extraction and classification tasks at the British Columbia Cancer Registry (BCCR). It highlights the potential of automating healthcare data extraction and emphasizes the importance of problem definition driven by clear business objectives beyond technical rigor, an iterative development approach, and deep interdisciplinary collaboration and co-design involving domain experts, end users, and machine learning (ML) experts. It further highlights the need for pragmatic model selection (including hybrid approaches and appropriately simple methods), rigorous attention to data quality (representativeness, drift, and annotation), robust error mitigation strategies including human validation and ongoing auditing, and the need for building organizational AI literacy. These practical considerations, which can be generalized beyond cancer registries, offer guidance to healthcare organizations seeking to successfully implement AI/NLP solutions to improve healthcare data management processes and ultimately enhance patient care and public health outcomes.