Becker's Hospital Review

90 CIO / HEALTH IT From CIO to CEO? Connecticut exec makes the move By Giles Bruce T he CIO of XPO Logistics is set to take over as CEO, illustrating the depth of business experience that companies' top tech leaders often have, the Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 16. CIO Mario Harik will succeed CEO Brad Jacobs after the Greenwich, Conn.-based logistics provider spins off its brokerage arm in the fourth quarter. "When you think of a CIO, usually, a lot of times you think only [of] a technology platform. But I've been part of the team that effectively has made decisions in every part of how we operate," Mr. Harik told the Journal. As CIO — and this might sound familiar to healthcare IT leaders — he has dealt with analytics-driven pricing and staffing platforms, and machine-learning algorithms to increase efficiency among employees. The evolution of the job of a hospital tech executive — from running bigger teams and budgets to having a hand in more parts of the operation — could similarly lead to more CIO-to-CEO moves in healthcare. One recent example is Suresh Gunasekaran, who was appointed president and CEO of University of California San Francisco Health in March. Mr. Gunasekaran had been CIO of Dallas-based UT Southwestern Medical Center for more than a decade. n Average health system CIO pay hits $459,200: 4 notes By Laura Dyrda H ealth system CIO pay is up 5.3 percent this year compared to 2022, according to SullivanCotter, as reported by Advisory Board. Four details: 1. Median base salary for CIOs at health systems is $459,200, up from $436,000 last year. 2. Total cash compensation jumped 9.8% in 2022 to $564,300. 3. By comparison, health system presidents and CEOs reported 13.4 percent total cash compensation growth in the last year to $1.6 million this year. Median base salary for CEOs is about $1.2 million. 4. Median base salary for CTOs is $302,600, up 3 percent from last year. Total cash compensation for CTOs is up 4.5 percent to $358,300. n CIO Joel Vengco on Hartford Healthcare's top challenges By Naomi Diaz H ealth system CIOs need to be able to predict and prepare for challenges in a rapidly changing business environment. Joel Vengco, senior vice president and CIO at Hartford Healthcare joined the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast" to talk about the challenges he faces. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity. Note: is is an edited excerpt. Question: What are some of the top challenges that you are preparing for over the next few years? Joel Vengco: Right now I think we're all facing financial challenges. ere are numerous factors that are creating these workforce chal- lenges for us. We have a lack of nurses and the ability to get nurses. We end up having to do a lot of agency outreach, and that is expensive reimbursement contraction, the lasting impact of the pandemic, geo- political issues that are impacting economies, supply chains, inflation and so on. We were anticipating this year of having a banner year in many ways, because the way that Hartford healthcare has really sort of withstood the pandemic and all the different types of things we have built up to this point. And all indicators suggested that, that we were going to do very, very well. I think we are challenged this year, and I think we are doing better than most, but we are still challenged. I think financially speaking, those are one of the top challenges that we have, especially as we think about growth. As we think about putting into place new digital and data capabilities, you need enough capital to be able to orchestrate that. I think that is going to be a challenge. I think the second chal- lenge is really just about how we get to market faster. Our vision of personalized, coordinated care is achieved by accelerating this data and digital platform and really getting to this on-demand healthcare model. n

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