Becker's Hospital Review

I require my IT division to do the same. Too of- ten we stay in the silo of technology, and when we do that we make ourselves somewhat impotent. I would admonish people to get out there and spend time with people." Phyllis Teater. CIO of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (Columbus). "I think one of the big lessons is to be willing to under- stand and to put yourself into the customer's shoes, whether they're patients, a department chair or a registration clerk … Without that, you run up against so many barriers because you just get so sure your customers don't know enough or don't see the real reason behind something or don't understand IT, or all of the above. But, most often it's because you as the CIO or IT leader don't understand them." On the importance of a strong IT staff: Michael John Archuleta. Director of IT at Mt. San Rafael Hospital (Trinidad, Colo.). "Going forward, I think we are facing many challenging items coming down the pipeline, and, I love to say this — we need to develop a strong team. With a strong team comes great communication, great processes and then comes great success. For any project implementation, make sure you have that strong team. It's challenging at times, but make sure every individual coming in is qualified and understands healthcare." Kumar Chatani. Senior Vice President and CIO of Mount Sinai Health System (New York City). "Hire a strong IT leadership team and delegate ef- fectively. Between the hospitals, clinics, the school and the accountable care organization, I oversee the IT function for over hundred sites. I cannot do it all by myself. I need to have a strong lead- ership team to delegate to so I can focus on the more strategic work." Joey Hobbs, CIO of Community Hospital Ander- son (Ind.). "My biggest piece of advice is to build a great team and then trust them. There's no ques- tion, you will not be able to do it all alone. You need to build a strong team that you trust and allow them and empower them to do things. It's the only way to accomplish everything in today's world." On leadership: Keith Jennings. CIO of Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston). "I've learned to see the value of having a long-term plan. You need a two-, three- even five-year plan, even if you think it's going to change. If you don't have a plan, there's nothing for anyone around you to react to, there's no milestone for staff or an icebreaker with other leaders… Go- ing forward, more and more of the clinical activity will be IT-based. By no means is IT most impor- tant, but the things we do are the underlying foun- dation for many of the things the hospital needs to do. That's why we need to get our roadmap out in front of clinical and administrative leaders so they can react to it and no one is caught off guard." Steve Robertson. CIO and Executive Vice Presi- dent of Revenue Management and IT at Hawaii Pacific Health (Honolulu). "Have a sense of humor, focus on the things that matter and be creative about it. Don't focus on IT. Instead, focus on the opera- tional areas you know you could help improve, and don't wait to be asked. The benefit of doing this is that you proactively make others successful while improving the company's performance." On the changing role of CIOs: Mary Anne Leach. Senior Vice President and CIO of Children's Hospital Colorado (Aurora). "I think the biggest lesson we all need to keep in mind is this is a time of opportunity. It can be a very challenging and demanding time for CIOs, and I think we need to turn it on its head and think about the opportunities here. Where can we be catalysts or agents of change? Where can we re- ally be the chief innovation officer?" Patrick O'Hare. Senior Vice President and CIO of Spectrum Health (Grand Rapids, Mich.) "[A]t the end of the day it's not about the technology, the technology is the easy part. It's about the change management process required to benefit from the technology, and that's where leadership is required. Getting the best contract with the hardware sup- plier is assumed. That just allows you to have a seat at the table, the things you actually discuss there are the business value [of the technology]." n 43 Health Information Technology Kumar Chatani Joey Hobbs Keith Jennings Steve Robertson Mary Anne Leach Patrick O'Hare

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