Becker's Hospital Review

55 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THOUGHT LEADERSHIP The question Paul Black and Michael Dowling won't stop asking: Why can't it be improved? By Molly Gamble I n fall 2019, Northwell Health and Allscripts combined forces to create the next-gen- eration EHR. e cloud-based, voice-enabled and AI-powered EHR will be designed based on input from Northwell clini- cians, IT experts and admin- istrators, alongside Allscripts' development and systems inte- gration expertise. It's not every day a 23-hospi- tal, 14,000 physician system partners with an IT solutions company to reengineer a piece of technology as ubiquitous as the EHR. Worth noting, too, is how the organizations ar- en't setting out on this effort quietly. The announcement of their partnership last fall made clear their account- ability for results, not only at Northwell but the industry at large, by showing what's pos- sible when EHR users and de- velopers innovate together. "I think the reason a lot of plac- es don't do something like this is because they're consumed with day-to-day management," said Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell, which is based in New Hyde Park, N.Y. "Manage- ment is managing what is. Leadership is focusing on what should be." Becker's Hospital Review caught up with Mr. Dowling and Allscripts CEO Paul Black to discuss the partnership, as well as the innovative philosophies and beliefs that drove them toward it. What follows is our conversation, lightly edited for length and style. Question: How do you define innovation? Let's start there. Michael Dowling: Innovation is about looking at everything you do and asking, "Why can't it be improved?" It's about having a culture that refuses to become a prisoner of precedence. It's a mindset, not a single project. It's making sure you have an entrepreneurial-type of culture throughout the whole organization, not just at the top. Paul Black: A culture in which people think about things different- ly, like Michael said, is so important. Innovation also involves asking, "What should we not be doing?" Organizational habits accumulate over time. When people can't answer my question of why we do some- thing, that's probably a good time to say, "Well, what would the impact be of us not doing that?" MD: Some people also think innovation is finding that one big thing — one major development. Really, innovation is the multiplicity of small things, especially in a big organization. For instance, I spent five hours recently in the operating room with one of our top surgeons, who has developed a completely new method for a specific kind of surgery. He was operating on a particular part of the body one way for years, then figured there has to be a better way. For five hours yester- day I watched innovation in action, which came from one person who is part of a larger culture that questions the status quo. Q: It's difficult to build this culture you've both described without a good number of innovative thinkers. How do you spot them? What gives them away? MD: People who think they know it all are rarely innovators. I want people who are inquisitive and a little dissatisfied. I want to work with people who are constantly raising the bar higher than they think they can achieve. Aer all, it's much better to raise the bar high and miss it than set the bar low and achieve it. PB: I agree with Michael on that point. I'm not looking for the smart- est person in the room, especially if that person thinks that's who they are. I like people who truly have ideas and a voice, who have a track record of being able to excite others and bring them along in their way of thinking. People from outside healthcare can help us see things differently, since a lot of us have been doing this for 30-plus years. Whatever problem we're trying to solve, we put it in our Ru- bik's Cube of knowledge and come out with an answer. I like having people in the room who don't have that same formula of thinking. MD: I'm looking for people who are excited to take on roles and responsibilities they've never done before. When someone takes on unfamiliar roles and duties, they often do so with fresh eyes and see things differently than their predecessors, which we stand to learn from. I seek out passionate people who enjoy taking risks — reasonable risks, that is. I also look for people who have an excite- ment about them that draws in other people. This can be found in the way they carry themselves, their personality, their team build- ing and their prowess. PB: Being inquisitive is also important. Are they readers? Do they think? Do they come up with new ideas in meetings? Do they bring up new ways of thinking about the problem we've all been working on solving? ose are the people I've historically awarded with much more responsibility. Part if this is about raising your hand and wanting more work, and getting it done, but part of innovation is also about building teams. Folks who are good at building the right kind of inno- vative culture — it shows in the teams they build. I like taking the best people from the outside, but I also like to promote people from within, which makes the team-building piece very important. MD: One other thing — I want somebody with an optimistic attitude. Somebody who says, "It can be done. If you visualize it, if you dream about it, you can make it happen." Somebody who is perpetually op- timistic. When things go wrong, they keep moving and don't get frus- trated. You want people who are not afraid of failure, but are willing to learn from it and start anew the next morning. PB: Yes, the person with the twinkle in their eye. Paul Black, CEO, Allscripts Michael Dowlling, President and CEO, Northwell Health

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