Roundtables

Healthcare CIOs: Past, Present and Future By Helen Gregg e healthcare industry is chang- ing and the CIO role is changing along with it. Once considered IT chiefs, CIOs are now an increas- ingly indispensible member of the C-suite, a leader relied upon to both lead hospitals' swelling IT departments as well as help their organizations find success in an increasingly technology-driven world. In the following roundtable, seven hospital CIOs share their thoughts on their jobs, challenges and successes. Question: How has your job changed over the past few years? How do you expect it to change in the next few years? Mike Canfield, Vice President of Operations and CIO of Fire- lands Regional Medical Center (Sandusky, Ohio): Several years ago, CIOs were talking about aligning IT strategy with their business partners and being a strategic partner in the C-suite. While this is clearly still import- ant, our focus has been forced to shi toward regulation and in- centive programs. Where we used to develop plans primarily based on our organizations' needs, we now plan primarily based on reg- ulatory incentives and require- ments. e two drivers are not diametrically opposed, but they are not completely aligned either. Assuming data reporting and interoperability requirements move from a standalone program into an ongoing structure like value-based purchasing, this new challenge of balancing the or- ganization's strategic needs with federal requirements will be the new normal. Steve Hess, CIO of University of Colorado Health (Aurora): With the increased maturity and adoption of our IT tools, there isn't much that we try to do as an organization that doesn't include some component of IT. From strategy, to outreach, to patient engagement to process improvement, our IT tools are a foundational component of those discussions. is is daunt- ing and challenging, but also so rewarding in that we feel we are finally using IT to drive efficien- cies, impact care and improve the patient experience in a way that has been envisioned for years, if not decades. Because of this, my role, and the role of healthcare CIOs everywhere, is one that is directly and indirectly involved in just about everything going on across the organization. We need to know a lot about a lot of things and attempt to be a thread that helps weave the strategy and ex- ecution together. I don't see this changing in future years, and will more than likely only expand. is demands that the CIO has a team that really understands the organizational strategy and can connect the dots quickly. It is imperative that the IT team un- derstands where the organization is going and how the IT projects and deliverables fit in. It is also imperative that the IT team is structured in a way to focus on the key objectives of the organi- zation. is creates agility and the ability to work on many major initiatives — the right major ini- tiatives, simultaneously. Dan Kinsella, Executive Vice President and CIO of Cadence Health (Winfield, Ill.): I started my career as a CIO in September of 2012, prior to that I spent 32 years in the industry as a consul- tant focused on IT. So in many ways, my job changed dramat- ically. My sense of the changes across the country in the same period are that most CIOs have seen dramatic changes in the Healthcare CIOs: Past, Present and Future 2

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