Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1430054
34 CIO / HEALTH IT How Cerner's new CEO Dr. David Feinberg plans to take EHRs to full potential By Jackie Drees A s part of his strategy for leading Cerner, David Feinberg, MD, is focused on im- proving EHR usability and interopera- bility, he said during the Kansas City, Mo.-based EHR company's Oct. 12 virtual event. Dr. Feinberg officially took the helm of Cerner Oct. 1, bringing more than 25 years of health- care experience to the role. Prior to Cerner, Dr. Feinberg's leadership positions included serving as vice president of Google Health, CEO of Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger, and president and CEO of Los Angeles-based UCLA Health Sciences. Dr. Feinberg shared some of his top priorities during a Cerner virtual event Oct. 12. Five quotes and insights from Dr. Feinberg: 1. On why he chose to join Cerner: "To me, the best way to have a meaningful impact on healthcare is by working with people deter- mined to build and use technologies that im- prove the lives of others." 2. On why improving EHRs is at the top of his priority list: "Cerner, and frankly other EHR companies, have done an incredible job of automating processes and digitizing med- ical records for more than 40 years. In itself, that's a huge accomplishment. … But we ha- ven't fully reached our potential. Digitized re- cords, for one, need to be usable. ey need to be measured by how they enable caregivers to spend even more time at the bedside and less time at the terminal." 3. On why usability is only the beginning: "Us- ability is just the beginning. Not the true promise of the digital age. If healthcare is people caring for people, then our job is to provide caregivers with the tools that allow them to do their jobs. Records should help patients avoid unnecessary tests and medications because the record is so easy to find and understand. Records should help nurses and doctors avoid errors and suggest what treatments might be best." 4. On need for interoperability with EHRs: "Records should allow all of you to understand the health of your community. Who is at risk? And what interventions are working? Records should predict. Records should help the world avoid or at least minimize the effects of the next pandemic. And all of this works only if we share your records with everyone you tell us to. If we use your records to improve your health, it could also improve the health of your communities and ultimately our world." 5. On the need to fix interoperability and usability, or "noise," to reach EHR's full po- tential: "e noise remains. at's what we have to take to zero. Our technology needs to be reliable. It needs to be understandable. It needs to be complementary. It needs to enable, not disable. So the vision of using data to do more great things even faster hasn't changed. at's the brass ring. But to achieve that vision — fixing the EHR — is job No. 1. e pipes are laid, which is wonderful, but we have to make it easier to get the right information to the right people and the right time to elimi- nate that noise." n The downsides to remote-work technologies: 5 insights By Jackie Drees W hile remote work offers benefits ranging from flex- ibility with schedules to eliminating commutes, the virtual model also introduces downsides such as isolation, exclusion and surveillance, The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 29. Lebene Soga, PhD, director of the international management and business administration program at University of Read- ing in Britain, studies remote work and how it reshapes work relationships. Dr. Soga and his team analyzed how 1,200 staff members and more than 60 managers interacted virtually at a Fortune 500 company. Five insights from Dr. Soga and his team: 1. Remote work platforms like Zoom offer us more of an il- lusion of connecting with colleagues rather than fostering deeper relationships, Dr. Soga said. Creating a relationship solely via video communication platform often begins with "ritual sniffing," or when people measure up each other to figure out the best way to make an impression rather than forming an authentic bond. 2. Virtual and tech-supported collaboration offers a slew of benefits for managers and employees, but the four big- gest risks are isolation, exclusion, surveillance and self cen- sorship. Dr. Soga cited having worked with managers who realize they have become distant from employees they are supposed to be leading. "They have become isolated from their teams because they begin to use these collaborative technologies as mere trans- mission devices for conveying messages," he said. "Technol- ogy must not become the only means by which we sustain work relationships or close relational gaps." 3. Surveillance is another downside of remote work, as col- laborative technologies make it easier for managers and employees to see who is present, who is pretending to be available and so on. Employees can check on their peers and also their managers, known as bottom-up surveillance. 4. The issue with increased surveillance is that it undermines trust by making employees feel policed and also results in people questioning the integrity of their managers. 5. Managers must look to overcome issues like surveillance and isolation by taking concrete actions to "encourage voice in the organization," Dr. Soga said, adding that approaching employees for one-on-one conversations is a great start- ing point. "Managers should go out of their way to arrange meetups, online or in person, for casual conversation about work and nonwork issues. And broadly speaking, the most important thing across the board with remote work is to find ways of fostering social connection." n