Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1405817
36 INNOVATION 'Technical debt' catches up to CIOs who launched flawed tech to meet pandemic needs By Hannah Mitchell C hief information officers at companies worldwide accelerated the launch of dig- ital programs to respond to the changing needs of their organizations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. However, these imperfect programs could incur debt to retroactively fix, according to a July 16 report by e Wall Street Journal. Technical debt is when flawed technology is launched to meet immediate needs, with CIOs usually aware these flaws will need to be ad- dressed in the future, the Journal reported. Tech- nical debt is similar to financial debt, where there are implications over time that can limit new innovations because money is being funneled to address former innovations. "Across the board, people were doing the bare minimum to keep the wheels on, and that's typ- ically an environment where technical debt aris- es," said Johna Till Johnson, CEO and founder of research firm Nemertes. Research firm McKinsey surveyed 50 CIOs in July 2020 and found that 60 percent of CIOs re- ported increased spending on technical debt. "Technical debt inhibits you from doing what you want to do in the shortest path possible, and I'd say it is a bigger problem now than be- fore," said Krish Krishnakanthan, a senior part- ner at McKinsey. omas Phelps, CIO and senior vice president of corporate strategy at soware company Laser- fiche, said taking on technical debt is OK as long as CIOs understand the risks associated with it. "Always [look] at technical debt to make sure it's an appropriate amount for your organiza- tion," he said. "If your goal is to drive techni- cal debt down to zero, you're going to drive up costs for your business and impede a culture of innovation. This will have catastrophic conse- quences as you will lose your competitive ad- vantage while striving for that perfect code in every release." n The 'Build-A-Bear Workshop' of digital health development: Jonathan Bush shares details on new startup By Jackie Drees F ormer Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush launched his new digital health data-sharing platform Zus Health in June, with a focus on selling software directly to other developers, rather than physicians or providers, according to a July 14 Boston Globe report. Zus has four builders on its platform: Oak Street Health, Firefly Health, City- block Health and Dorsata. Zus' goal is to serve as a place for the builders to create proprietary health apps for consumers by offering capabilities and tools that support healthcare workflows, data acquisition, patient records interoperability and patient identity, and control over data. Mr. Bush likened the platform to Build-A-Bear Workshop — but rather than helping kids make stuffed animals, Zus is delivering necessary building components for digital health app developers, according to the Globe. "It represents a new business audience in healthcare that actually wants to share records," he said. "They benefit from shared data while [many of] the established players don't, and a set of tools to build stuff that just didn't exist before recently." Zus also closed a $34 million financing round in June, led by investors in- cluding Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), F-Prime Capital, Maverick Ventures and Rock Health. Mr. Bush co-founded EHR company Athenahealth in 1997; since resign- ing from Athenahealth in 2018, he has invested in and become executive chair of telemedicine provider Firefly Health. n Cerner exec departs, joins ex-colleague Zane Burke at innovation startup By Jackie Drees E d Enyeart joined workers' compensation digital health company Bardavon Health Innovations as CFO, where he will work alongside his former co-worker and former Cerner President Zane Burke, ac- cording to a July 8 news release. Mr. Enyeart joins Bardavon Health Innovations after spending almost 26 years at Cerner. Most recently, he served as senior vice president of cli- ent financial operations at the Kansas City, Mo.-based EHR company. Mr. Burke joined the board of directors for Bardavon in January 2021. He spent more than two decades at Cerner, holding several executive po- sitions in sales, strategy, finance and operations. He left his role as pres- ident of the company in 2018 to head up daily operations at Livongo, where he was CEO until departing from the consumer health company in October 2020 after its $18.5 billion merger with Teladoc Health. Bardavon works with various stakeholders and uses data analytics to bet- ter manage claims and connect members to injury prevention, treatment and work-readiness services across its national network. n