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 Welcome to this Week in Health It where we discuss the news, information and emerging thought with leaders from across the healthcare industry. This is episode number 54. This is a special end of the year, episode year in review. The CIO's episode. Um, so this is the third of four episodes. We already did the innovators, we've did, we've done the Clinicians.

This is the c i o episode, and next week we'll do the top 10, uh, video, uh, episode. None of which you've heard yet because I kept them out of the initials, initial ones so that you could be surprised with the, uh, Top 10 are. This podcast is brought to you by Health Lyrics, be a market leader. We help you to clarify your health IT plan, eliminate confusion, align your work experience breakthroughs.

Visit health lyrics.com to schedule your free consultation. My name is Bill Russell, recovering Healthcare, c I o, writer and advisor with the previously mentioned health lyrics. And as you can tell, I'm trying to talk fast because . It was really hard to do this episode. There are so many good clips from the CIOs that, uh, I feel like I'm cheating them by not having a, you know, a multi episode, uh, of just the CIOs.

But, uh, I have picked, it looks like about, uh, 14 clips. It's about 40 minutes. That's without me talking, so I'm gonna keep my talking to a minimum. The only thing I want to cover, uh, to make sure that you are aware of is, Yeah, we're doing a survey. We're doing a survey off the, off the health lyric site and off the, uh, this week in health it.com site.

And, uh, you can find that survey at the top of the page and it's all about the, uh, all about the podcast. This is where we, we are asking you for feedback. What'd you like, what'd you not like? Um, You know, would you refer to a friend? Uh, you know, what, what, what should we do more of? What should we, uh, cut out?

So we really want your feedback as we prepare. Uh, I will more than likely take a couple weeks off in January. We've been doing this 52 weeks straight, and, uh, I'll take some time off in January. Rethink the, uh, podcast, how we're gonna do it, get some, uh, great guests lined up. And, uh, we will probably kick off in, uh, either late January.

Uh, or the first week of February, I haven't really decided yet, but, uh, I am gonna take a little bit of time, talk to some people, gather some feedback, and really come back strong with, uh, with uh, some fine tuned messaging based on your feedback. So, uh, alright. Is there anything else I wanna cover? I don't think there is.

Uh, get the feedback. Um, uh, I just wanna make sure I thank all my guests. It was, it's been a great year. I have learned a ton. And, uh, hopefully you're sharing this with, uh, your peers so that they can learn from these, uh, from these incredible, uh, guests that I've had on the show. Um, so without, uh, further ado, let's go ahead and start getting right into the podcast.

So, . Our first, uh, our first guest is, let's see, what would be the best one? We'll start with, we'll start with one of the elder statesmen. We'll start with Mark Prop, c i o, for Intermountain Healthcare, and, uh, he's gonna share why it's a great time, a great time to be a C I O in healthcare. Man, I gotta tell you, bill, what?

I'm excited. So I'm in the latter part of my career. I do have older children, and I'm older because I have older children. Um, and I am so excited. I think it is such an amazing time to be involved with technology and healthcare and having been a C I O and whatever that role turns out to be in the long run.

There's still, CIOs will be leaders and what we do in technology, I believe, and I'm excited about the confluence of so many technologies right now and, and the potential that that has, not to just help healthcare, but to absolutely change it. Improve it and probably save it for our country and, you know, globally, I suppose, if you wanna think that way.

I mean, if you think about artificial intelligence and the potential that has, as it gets coupled with the cloud and all the data that exists, as it gets coupled with what we're doing around interoperability as it goes mobile and what, with the power that we now have with the mobile devices and I, I see a day from a consumer perspective where, Dr.

Google or Dr. Apple or whatever we want to call it, is there, that's where they're gonna go for their initial primary care is going to be the device and all the knowledge that that device has. Um, that's gonna help healthcare because we don't have enough clinicians to start with and it'll really help focus what they do.

And it'll be way more real time because, well rebar all wearing monitoring devices and, you know, we're learning a lot more about ourselves. You know, the human body's actually becoming its own. Um, platform for, for, uh, for computing. So I'm excited on that side. Continue to look at the confluence of capabilities.

I look at what we're doing around, um, natural language processing and voice, so nuance and some of the companies that, that work in that space. Um, we have been working with Stanford around computer vision. Actually teaching the computer to see. So think about the, the triad of being able, the computer, being able to see computer, being able to hear an artificial intelligence.

Can we create Jarvis? Can we create what was an Ironman three? And just have the clinicians do their job and ask the computer for support and we'll do all the documentation and all the, you know, the dirty work behind, which is what we should be automating. Because to me to today, We don't facilitate care with technology.

We facilitate creating a record. We get information to clinicians that's a little more useful to them, but we don't facilitate what they do day to day. In fact, we get in their way and we hear that all the time. But again, there's confluences, so many new technologies that are at the very heel of the hockey stick.

These things are gonna take off. I mean, I know they're, we all know they're gonna take off. I'm not telling anybody anything They. But it is so exciting and I, I think I'm gonna witness in kind of the twilight of my career an absolute shift. Of how technology is used and helps what we're doing in healthcare.

So I think that's really, really exciting and, and it's a great, like I said, it's a great time to be a c i O in healthcare. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with, uh, mark. It is a great time to be a, uh, a c I O in healthcare. It's a challenging job, but it, there are so many things, uh, coming. There's the digital res revolution.

There is, uh, so digital healthcare is, is right around the corner. You have all sorts of new . Uh, tools, gadgets, gizmos, uh, cloud, agile, you name it. Uh, it's all right around the corner. Uh, it makes our job hard, but makes it exciting. There's always something to do every day you come in, um, along those lines, you know, some days are, are very difficult.

So I asked, uh, another, uh, senior leader, uh, John Halamka, who has appeared in every episode, uh, so far, the end of the year episodes. But he gave me such a great answer to this. Uh, I thought I'd share it with you, and it's about staying positive as a C I O. Here's John Halamka. So, uh, you maintain, uh, as people can tell you, maintain a extremely positive attitude.

Uh, I'm sure you've had many difficult meetings, uh, as many as the, the next C I O. Uh, how do you keep from becoming cynical? How do you keep that, that positive, uh, frame of, frame of mind? So, what's really important for an IT leader is to have something in your life that grounds you. So if I got customer emails this afternoon that said, I hate you, you're horrible, I'd go out and hug the llamas, right?

So remember, I run a 70 acre organic farm that is a, the animal rescue for the entire Boston region. And so I have horses and cows and pigs and I'm up at 4:00 AM shoveling manure, and if I have a bad day, I'm just out in the barn. Something that you can look to that is some part of a greater good keeps you grounded.

Yeah. And the, uh, the animals aren't tweeting out, uh, negative comments about you these days, I assume, although some, they're writing anonymous editorials in the New York Times, though. It's a, you know, those llamas, you gotta watch 'em . Yeah. They're, they're crafty sitting over there, uh, with those neural implants connected to the internet.

Yeah. Great. Uh, words of wisdom from John Halamka. Uh, I wish we could all own a farm, but, uh, in light of not owning a farm, maybe we could all stay grounded and have something outside of work that, uh, keeps us energized, keeps us focused. So, uh, fantastic words of wisdom. Appreciate, uh, John being on the show, uh, multiple times this year.

Uh, but another person who came on the show, and again, a, a new person for me, I was, I've been introduced to a lot of new people this year, um, is, uh, Kristen Meyers, uh, SS v p for, uh, Mount Sinai Health in, uh, New York City. And, uh, she, uh, has a passion for, uh, really help helping out the next generation of women in health IT leadership roles.

And she had this advice for professional women in health. It know that you're, you're an advocate for women in leadership and diversity. We talked about this, uh, the last time we were on the phone. Uh, why do you think diversity is so important to. And, uh, I think the following question for me on this is gonna be, you know, what, what's some advice that you would give women in healthcare it at this point?

So why, why do you think diversity is important and advice for women in health? It. So I think, you know, diversity is important. You know, we need to have different opinions at the table in order to solve really complex problems. And as you know, in healthcare and specifically in it, we've got a lot of complex, um, problems to solve.

I also think that, uh, you know, at the leadership level, we need to have representation of our patient population. And when you think about it, 60% and above of healthcare decisions are made by women. And so that's why I feel, you know, pretty passionately that, you know, the uh, leadership has to reflect. Our patient population and where the decisions are being made, um, in order to engage our patients also.

And, you know, I'm very lucky to be working at an organization where, you know, we have great examples of strong executive women. Uh, we had a number of them, uh, recognize. Recently in Cranes and you know, we also, the number one, uh, health system, uh, according to Diversity Inc. Um, for diversity and inclusion.

And we've got a great diversity and inclusion program here. So again, an honor to work at Mount Sinai. Yeah. And well, that would have to be the case in New York City. It is literally the . The epicenter of a melting pot. Um, you, the, the, your patient community is very diverse and, and your care community is, is there anything you, would, you, any advice you would give to women?

I, I mean, I saw, I saw a. Post, I think it was LinkedIn post where, uh, you know, a health system team said, just finished our strategy session, our setting, our strategy, whatever. Great meeting, and the picture had a picture of all the people that were attending. And I, I kid you not, I think it was like 14 men and two women, and I thought, I That's, that's problematic.

Yep. Um, but what would you tell, what would you tell, what's your advice to women to get more women in that, uh, in that, you know, executive level, um, you know, uh, seat at the table talking about strategy. How, how, how are we going to do that? Well, I think, you know, ultimately it starts with, uh, the recruiting and the pipeline.

And you know, if you are, uh, an executive, it doesn't matter, uh, what gender you are and you're receiving the same resumes over and over, uh, the answer the question is, why. . And so you've gotta go back to HR and you've gotta look at, you know, the pool of resources that you're trying to pull from. And that's not just the gender, it is also for underrepresented minorities.

And, you know, so I think that that's where it starts. Um, I would also encourage, um, you know, female leaders to engage, um, the men in their department, um, as allies. Uh, because just having a discussion with other female leaders, Great. And I think that, you know, it helps other women in the department, but ultimately we have to engage the men, um, in this endeavor.

So if there is, you know, a room full of men, um, I think that, you know, the question would be, you know, where are the women? And I think that, you know, women leaders and, and men leaders need to bring in, um, other women into the meetings. Um, even if they're, you know, directors or senior directors, just to give them that exposure.

Give them the seat at the table and hear what their opinions are. I think if more and more happens like that, um, we'll get some progress. And I also think mentoring is huge. Yeah. I know that, uh, you know, sometimes it's a challenge, uh, for, uh, women. I've heard many, many women say there's not being mentored by a female leader.

So I really encourage mentoring, um, at our health system and, you know, we've got a great program here. Um, but I would encourage, you know, other health systems and hospitals have a mentoring program and have, uh, women to women, uh, mentoring. It helps. Yeah, be a mentor. Seek a mentor. Um, and, and I think that's, that's a great way to, uh, to end the show.

Yeah, it was, it, it, it was a great, uh, great conversation. Great to, uh, get to know Kristen a little bit. She gave us a rundown on the, um, on the Epic conference this year. And, uh, it was, it, it was really insightful. In fact, it was one of the most, for a little while there, it was one of the most listened to episodes.

And I think it is still one of the top 10 episodes that, uh, the, uh, podcast in terms of, uh, listeners. So, um, you know, staying on that theme of really your career and owning your career, uh, I had a couple of great conversations this year with Sue Shade principal at, uh, Starbridge Advisors. Sue has done so many, uh, great things within the industry, and it's great to have her on the show to share her wisdom.

Uh, here's what we, we were doing sort of a role play on healthcare m and a and, uh, you know how . You know, how you, uh, manage through m and a. So if you are in the midst of an m and a situation, which some of you are, or you're getting ready for an m and a situation, the the one show that, uh, Sue and I did, we just focused very heavily on m and a and we just did this role play of two CIOs and how we would approach it and what coaching we would give to our staff and what we've seen play out over the years.

Uh, here's a little excerpt from that one. We're bringing our teams together. What's, uh, how do you, how do you prepare your team for their first meeting? With our team? So we're gonna bring our infrastructure teams together, our innovation teams together, our data teams together, and we're gonna have, we're gonna have a common meeting.

How do you sort of prepare them? What's the, uh, I don't know. How, how do you make sure that that first meeting goes well? I go back to what we've already talked about in terms of relationship and the dynamic between the larger and the smaller organizations, um, in prepping people and, and helping them understand and message.

Um, what I would emphasize with people is that change is constant and we don't have all the answers. Um, your communication is critical. Uh, I subscribe to, you know, the approach that you tell people what you know when you can. Uh, you tell people if you don't know, if you don't have answers yet, you tell them you don't, and when you might, and if you have information that you can't yet share for whatever reason, you tell them, yeah, we do know that we made that decision, but.

Um, I'm the subscriber to the philosophy or to the belief that, uh, that lack of information that people make stuff up. That's how the rumors start, right? Yeah. It just goes round and round. So people aren't getting any regular proactive communication. They're gonna make stuff up and then, and then you just have to try to manage that.

What I, uh, would also, obviously with the advice of hr, how do you talk about, um, Future work, and on the one hand you can message, there's plenty of work for everybody. We know that. On the other hand, you have to say no guarantees as to whether there'll be change changes or staff reduction. You know, and HR tells you what to say and how to say it, what not to say.

The other thing, my message to individuals, because individuals get really worried at a time like this is twofold. One, open to the possibilities. Who knows what changes there's gonna be and what new opportunities, new jobs, new skills, you know, they can learn. So be open to the possibilities. The other thing I tell people is you own your own career.

So depending on what those possibilities are and those changes, if you like 'em, if you don't like 'em, if you wanna propose. He put me in this role instead. You know, every individual owns their own career. Phenomenal insight. I I really do appreciate, uh, Sue coming on the show. Uh, another, uh, friend of mine who I got to know after he replaced Bill Spooner down at, uh, down at Sharp is Ken Lewan.

And Ken Lewan is, uh, again, you know, if you've been doing this long enough, and Ken, Ken has been doing it since the punch card days. Uh, you just amass, uh uh, Uh, an amazing amount of wisdom, especially, uh, if like, Ken, you're, you're a student and you're constantly learning. And so we were talking about the, um, the biggest changes coming on in healthcare, and one of the things we talked about was retailers as primary care providers, and this is what Ken had to say.

Next disruptive number five, uh, disruption in healthcare retailers as primary care physicians. Uh, what would you tell your peers about this one? Well, I, my biggest c challenge here is be talking to your, uh, to your primary care partners, your physicians, about how do we continue to be relevant. Um, you think about a pharmacy and if, you know, many of us travel over in Europe and think about what you can do at a pharmacy without a doctor's orders.

Uh, I think this is a huge, uh, potential disruptor to the traditional primary care model that we've grown up with, where everybody, everything kind of runs through your primary care physician. You, you know, you go there for any kind of diagnosis, referrals, treatments, and, uh, you know, people are, people are disrupting that and saying, Not only do, do a lot of individuals not want to go through that model, but there's a, there's a lot of other people who could, could take up that space on the kind of the, you know, the self-treatment, the wellness, the kind of the, um, you know, what do I need to do and, and where, where do I kind of go to, to get, to keep myself?

I'd say you need to be looking at how do you compete or partner. 'cause you don't always have to do it yourself, but how do you compete or partner in this space because, um, if you don't, you're gonna become irrelevant as care provider. And, and, uh, the, the term in other industries is called disintermediation.

And if you allow someone to come between you and your consumer, you are just asking for a world of hurt. Yeah, Ken is, uh, Ken's an awesome guest and I really appreciate him coming on the show. Um, you know, another, another person who probably had one of the busiest years as a C I O this year is Ed Marks.

He took on the role, uh, at the Cleveland Clinic. And he even took the time, took time out of his busy schedule to uh, spend some time with us and, and, and do an episode. And I really appreciate Ed. 'cause early on in my career, I, I, you know, just reached out to him 'cause I was new to healthcare. Uh, and, uh, And he was one of those people as well as, uh, John Halamka and John Glasser and some others who, uh, were just so, uh, gracious with their time and give me, gave me, uh, a valuable insight.

Uh, this is one of the things that Ed, uh, told me to do. He told me to go outside the industry and get some input from outside the industry. And so I, I, I, uh, prompted him on it and this, and I had him share, uh, some of the things he shared with me early on in my c i o career. So here's, uh, here's Ed Marks.

This actually impacted me, so I, I really wanted to share it with others. So we had a conversation early on in my healthcare c i o tenure, and you said that you bring in, uh, you take your team out and you bring in people from outside of the, uh, healthcare industry to have discussions around strategy, trends and technology.

Can you give us an idea of what you did, why you did it, and what, uh, benefit was derived by your team and the health system by interacting with organizations outside of healthcare? Of course. So I think I first learned this technique when I started to be on a couple of boards for organizations. And instead of being a bunch of healthcare CIOs, there was a C I O from Kellogg's.

There was a c I O from Colgate and Wrigley's and, and I remember just learning a lot from them and different perspectives. I thought, wow, I wanna hang out with that person and not just myself. I want my team hang out with that person. So then we started doing that. So once a year I pick a different company.

Meet with those companies. I'll give you, uh, one example, P one. So P one was really good at data analytics. They, they had this amazing, uh, performance in revenue and when I asked about how they went from a penny stock to, you know, a very successful company, it was all around analytics. . And so we met with them and talked to analytics.

We were about to launch a big bi analytics endeavor at my organization then, and we learned so much from them. And one thing was they watermarked all their reports, whether they were online or hard copy. They were watermarks, the c e o, and everyone knew. You can trust that data that came with that watermark because it was part of their BI program, as opposed to someone else creating a spreadsheet, giving out data.

You don't know if it's accurate or not, but this meant was accurate. So that's what we started to do. So you knew when you got this report that it had our watermark on it. You knew you could trust that source of information. So that helped with our credibility and. The standardization and, uh, you know, going from many different data sources to one.

So that's one example. So I, we do it all the time and we've got it some planned here as well. Yeah, that was, uh, I, thanks for sharing that with me. That was very powerful. You know, that's a recurring theme of, uh, getting inspiration from outside, outside the industry. In fact, uh, just recently, in fact, I think it's December, I think it's like just a week ago or a couple weeks ago.

Providence, St. Joseph Health announced that they're bringing in a C I O from Microsoft and somebody with, you know, a couple decades of experience of Microsoft's AI experience. And so we, we see this trend towards, uh, some health systems going outside the industry to look for help for new ideas, uh, for how they're going to address this digital economy.

Uh, but I think traditional CIOs, the CIOs that have been in healthcare for a long time, can, uh, can . Can still make the transition as long as they're open. And, uh, so we had that conversation. Craig Richards and I, uh, Craig was the former c i o at Atrium Health. Uh, had this conversation about get gathering inspiration from other industries, uh, around innovation.

And this is what, uh, Craig had to share. What industries do you look to for inspiration for innovation within healthcare? Great question. Um, my, under my answer would be all. I think there's a lot of nuggets that they gain from all industries. So we look at the energy sector, there's things that they do to try to limit the use of energy.

And so from that standpoint, we're trying to limit the use of healthcare. I. So, you know, those are both two very precious resources. So I think there's things we can learn from them. Retail obviously on how to brand, how to get things out there, banking services, all that stuff kind of brings things into, uh, a patient's hands or a consumer's hands.

Putting things, you know, in, in your pocket. I think all those different industries are all things that we can learn from. We never within healthcare had to, or very rarely had to focus much on the. People came to us because their doctors told them to come to us. Or people picked those doctors 'cause they were part of the payer plans, then they were in-network versus auto network.

You don't have, I don't have an in-network bank. I don't have an in-network, you know, retail shop. I can go to wherever I want. And I think now that we we're continued to move, although I believe at a slower pace, expectations. In terms of, you know, consumer directed and, and high deductible plans, people do have choice to go in and out of network for the best value of their dollar that they're pulling out of their wallet.

So from that standpoint, I think there's all those different sectors you gotta learn from and I don't think there's any specific one that would lead all of them. I do believe they all have advantages where they, you know, moved ahead. And that's where I think when you look at like the Charlotte c I o association, you know, when we started coming together a half a dozen years ago or so, more informally, Part of what we realized was 80 to 85% of all the work that we do was the same.

You know, there's a, there's very few that actually, uh, of the things that we had, uh, performed as a c I O that actually was different in a bank versus a energy. Sector versus the healthcare sector. And so once we found that, you know, we're not that quote unquote special that we always thought we were, it was really great to be able to share things back and forth and to use some of the techniques that they've used and bring that on to, you know, in the healthcare industry.

Yeah. So that's great advice. So, uh, if you're a healthcare IT person, develop those relationships outside the industry and, uh, You know, you might, you might learn, uh, some things and they might learn some things from you. So it's, it's great to have those relationships. Yeah. I really appreciate Craig, uh, coming on show.

He is, um, uh, so full of energy, so full of thought and ideas. Uh, he and I probably could have talked for about three or four hours. Um, I. So, uh, you know, again, in that category of just really smart people who, uh, are doing some really cool things in healthcare, uh, I think one of the, the, the, uh, brightest young CIOs, uh, in the industry is Chad Brizendine out at, uh, St.

Luke's, uh, university Health System in, uh, my parents' hometown of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I got a chance to work with, uh, Chad a bunch over the past year, and he came on the show and we talked about . The, um, the, uh, the consumer facing application that he had just rolled out. I'm trying to, I'm trying to shed myself of the word portal moving forward.

So it, it really was a consumer facing app. What they had done is they'd used, uh, Epic's App Orchard and they actually designed the entire experience based on what the consumers were asking for. And, uh, and he shared some of that insight, uh, on this clip. Yeah. So let's talk about your, your, uh, mobile and, and web consumer experience.

Uh, you're an epic shop. You chose to build your experience on top of the Epic APIs. Give us an idea of, uh, what that experience has been like. A lot of people go, just go the MyChart route, here's MyChart, and away we go. But you, you really broke it down into its components and, and built on top of that a p I set.

How's, what, how's your experience been with that? And then what was your thought process behind not using the out of the box and. And, and going with a, a more, uh, customized experience for your, uh, for your consumers. So I think the, the first thing that we wanted to do is really find out what our customers needed, right?

So we, we leveraged customer focus groups to talk to them about what would I. Uh, really helped them the most and they're actually part of our prioritization process. So, uh, we're running another one fairly soon on our backlog requests and new ideas. And, um, those things may be in, um, the top line of things that are capable of Epic or not capable of Epic, right?

But it's really making sure that we have what our customers want and showing them what's possible. So I'd say that's, that's first and foremost to us. So being able to prioritize those. Second, you know, when I think about Epic and I think about the ecosystem of software, um, I think you have to split things into front end and backends, right?

Uh, you have many things that are backend and you have, you know, you want to keep the front end single pane of glass, and I think I. Why a lot of folks have gone to a single electronic medical record is because physicians and staff and everyone don't want to be working in 2, 3, 4 systems. And so you don't want the same experience for your, your customers.

Uh, so how do you create that, that single pane of glass experience? And that's by leveraging. Multiple products. So, you know, epic doesn't have the capability to do, um, price transparency. Epic doesn't have the capability to check you in to, um, an urgent care, uh, that's not pre-scheduled. Uh, it doesn't have the capability to, um, and it's coming out with the next release, but geolocation.

So what, what we're doing is basically leveraging the best of what Epic has to offer when they have to offer it. And when they don't have it to offer and our customers want it ahead of time, leveraging third party vendors like American well or you know, find AOC or whatever those capabilities are, and those are all the backend technologies, but we're really controlling that.

Front end ux, UI and, and to make that experience the most optimal and really leveraging our customers to help us get feedback on the, on it to make sure that it is the most optimal. Now, I, I can hear some other CIOs saying, well, you know, what, do you have a team of a hundred developers? That kind of stuff.

And now I know the answer to this, but I'm just gonna ask it. How, how big is your development team? Um, three people. Yeah, so we've leveraged, you know, and some partners. And some partners, but you know, we haven't spent $40 million on this. Uh, and I won't tell you how much we spent, but, um, it's, it's a lot cheaper than what people think.

And, and the reason is, is we're not building back in technology. We're building front end technology. And that's, that's really, I think, smart, right? We're leveraging backend where possible and, and creating the right, if we have the right architecture, which is a challenge right then, then we can . Do this. Um, and I think that's, and you know, this bill in your, in your working environment that, you know, the, uh, healthcare has got a long way related to integration and interoperability and architecture and, um, you know, it will evolve, but it's, uh, it's a very complex at this stage.

Yeah, I, you know, great insight, uh, consumer focus. But, you know, there was so much happening on the innovation front and, uh, I, I'm actually gonna share two clips only from one person, um, because she has been, uh, gracious, she. Has been on the show, the show twice. Uh, and that's Sarah Richardson. And she also ha has had me on her podcast, the SoCal himss uh, podcast.

And if you haven't picked that up, there's a lot of great guests on that. And uh, I'm gonna share two things 'cause I happen to have her on the show at a time where Apple was announcing some. Um, some of their moves this past year. And so the first clip is on, uh, you know, can Apple really give healthcare the easy button?

Which I thought was an interesting concept, which is really what people are hoping for from Apple and Google, but mostly from Apple, is can they make healthcare, uh, can they take the friction out of healthcare? Can they make it easier? And then the second clip, and I'll just roll right into it, is, uh, . It is around hyper consum, hyper consumerism.

I was asking her what her priorities are, and this is one of the top priorities for her. So here's two clips from Sarah Richardson. I guess my question to you is, are we finally at the starting line? Is it, does this Apple announcement going from 13 to 39? Are we finally at the starting line for this, uh, consumer revolution within healthcare?

Are, are we, are we still being a little over overly optimistic? Anything Apple does has hype. I mean, come on. That's what they're known for. But I think about, we have, so one of the things I love about Apple is they talk about it needs to be simple, it needs to be elegant, it needs to be easy. You think about how they, they've.

Historically always designed their products. And I laugh because we, we in my house we're a house divided. It's either an Android house or it's an Apple house and it's this constant battle. And yet I can't imagine my life without my Apple products. And it's not because I'm an evangelist for Apple. It's that.

Everything I do revolves around my Apple products, my MacBook, my iPad, my iPhone. I'd be more upset if I couldn't find my iPad than like my shoes in the morning because I live my entire life on that device. In fact, that's how we're communicating right now. Yeah, and you do that 'cause they're easy. Are they?

If, are they gonna be able to take that easy, the easy button and move it into healthcare? That, I guess that's the question. They will. So long as Apple's able to, uh, continue to push and we, we overhype again, the whole interoperability and this, that and the other thing. When you look at your, if you go to your Apple phone and you go to Health Kit, your information's already there.

It's already telling you the things that you're doing. So long as the E M R vendors, so long as the third party applications that allow themselves to connect into Health Kit, like even today I use Vitality at Work and some other things. They're all connected to healthcare already. So as long as we continue to make sharing that information easy, um, then yeah, I mean at the end of the day, apple already has all of our information.

What's the difference if they also have our health information? Now I. Simulate that information to make it easier to share. It'll be interesting how to get that information back outta healthcare. So if I go, if I go see you as a patient and you're a specialist that has no history with me and all my information's on my phone, we have to make it easy and at my discretion to give you the information in my phone to you if you're somehow not then connected into the Apple ecosystem yet.

The last question I want to ask you is, uh, what's one area do you think CIOs need to be really focused in on right now? Patient experience. Okay. Consumer, obviously hyper consumerism is where I would focus it more because patient experience to me is a, a banner and a campaign and this and that. No hyper consumerism driving everything to a digital experience because if we don't make it easy for patients like ourselves to use healthcare on our smart devices than people like, I shouldn't say people, companies like Apple are starting to do it for us, right?

And um, Yeah, this is gonna sound like a little bit of a commercial, so I won't mention my company again. But essentially what we talk to people about is, um, you know, . Actually being intentional about the experience you want your consumers to, to have instead of just allowing it to happen and going, oh, well, you know, that's just their experience.

But really identifying those points, those points of meaning where people go, Hey, I got a call back from my primary care physician the next day, and that makes all the difference in the world. And they become loyal to that company and loyal to that organization and that primary care physician for life, just because I know that's my parents' story.

They got a phone call the next day. She did not have to call them, but she wanted to follow up. And they're like, and she did, she actually moved from one health system to another and they went from one health system to another to follow her. So great insights from Sarah and, uh, always, uh, a well-informed guest.

And she was on, uh, one of the, uh, one of the shows that we did at one of the conferences. She was, uh, one of the people I interviewed and, um, . Gave me some, uh, just wonderful insights on, uh, culture and on developing a, uh, good culture within health. It. So, um, uh, let's keep moving. So David Munch joined us. I have so many great quotes from David Mutz and, uh, to be honest with you, we're just, I.

Short on time. I chose one of the shorter ones, , but the just the, if you ever get a chance to talk to him, just grab him and ask him whatever questions you have. He's so approachable. And, uh, this, I, I was asking him about the health IT talent shortage and how you address it. And he gave this, uh, you know, great simple, uh, little answer on this.

And I think there's a lot of wisdom in it. Give us some of the other strategies that CIOs can employ to find the best talent. Really, it's, uh, The best approach that I've used that worked well was the summer intern, uh, activity. Uh, we used to beg, borrow and steal to get into the budget enough money to do things, but, um, you can take students from anywhere and everywhere.

And to let you know, the only time that we brought on a student who stayed with us was one who wanted to move back to be close to her parents, but we used to get five to eight people. Every summer and grow our own. And the fact is, the enthusiasm is really a great quality to find in any employee. And these people would start at the lowest level to get a good understanding.

We put 'em at the help desk and that would give them an exposure and a good test of patients. Um, but it would also allow them to see the diversity of needs. Fantastic. So I, you know, Uh, hopefully you get a lot of really good, uh, ideas and thoughts from this. Uh, I, I really enjoy the conversations I have with these CIOs.

Some of the, uh, you know, here's some of the more pragmatic things that we've talked about. Here's Tressa Springman and I talked about what health system CIOs want from vendors. And, uh, you know, this video actually ended up getting a lot of hits on social media, and I, I hope it was the vendors actually hitting it so that they, uh, can value our time.

A little bit better than they have in the past. So, uh, here's trusses, Springman, and I talking about, uh, what vendors, uh, what CIOs want from vendors. What's one thing you would say to vendors trying to work with the health system? You know, I got, I got that email once that had, dear whatever, it wasn't even my name.

You know, we have the greatest things to slice bread, you need this thing. Um, but I get this question a lot from vendors is, you know, uh, what's, what's the, what's the approach that resonates with the c I o.

Well with a name like Tresa, um, nine times outta 10, they spell it wrong. Anyway, so thank you for the letter. Um, but that's not me. You know, bill, I think you can relate to this. Um, and, and I can too. I, I've been a c i o now for over 20 years in a few different institutions, organizations, but that's not where I've always been.

Um, you know, we have a passion for supporting healthcare as an industry and, um, you know, as, as a commitment to doing a better job here in the US with, um, health quality, health equality and a more economic value to the quality of care. And, um, I'm most appreciative when, um, vendors or other people in this ecosystem that we're in approach us as peers and professionals.

You know, I, I think as you know, um, we have all worn different badges and sat in different seats, and I think if there's, um, a participation in the dialogue about how we can solve a problem, there's a higher probability that when we get down to the investments and tools, um, that we're taking advantage of the players in the market who we.

I gotta honest, I um, maybe it's a bit arrogant. I pride myself on knowing the,

So, um, when I know I need it, I'm calling them. So just having, um, a, a presence and recognizing that I'd rather talk about the problem that we're trying to solve together than any specific method of solving it. Um, usually it takes care of itself from a product perspective. Yeah, I, and, and similarly, I say three things to 'em.

I say, you know, know my business. So I don't want to keep educating you on my business. The second thing is don't try to get to me through email. If you can't get to me through another person, you're probably not gonna get the sale anyway. So either through a peer telling me, Hey, you should talk to this person, or somebody within our system saying you should talk to this person.

So that's the second thing I would say to people. And the third is, a traditional sales rep doesn't cut it anymore. When I talk to the sales rep, I want to be strategizing. I want them to know their product backwards and forwards. I don't wanna. Have a go between, oh, let me bring in this person, lemme bring in this person.

I want them to at least have a base level of knowledge that that adds value to. Uh, our time is valuable. It's the most valuable thing, which is why I appreciate you. Uh, here's a little bit more, uh, pragmatism. We had, uh, I had Patrick Anderson, who was the c i o of Hogue Hospital at the time. He's now the c i o at, uh, city of Hope in, uh, LA County.

And, uh, . He, uh, he gave us the c i o playbook and his principle number one was run it as a team. And, uh, here he shares some of those insights. , you have shared, uh, with me your c i O playbook. So you've gone into new, uh, gone into health systems on several occasions, inherited it shops, and you have some principles here that you, uh, go by.

So, uh, I'm gonna share some of that as we go through and just ask questions around it. So the first principle is, uh, you run it as a leadership team. The team runs it. Tell us about that. Tell us, uh, what that looks like. Sure. You know, years ago, I, I, I couldn't keep up Bill. I, my time was, was just, I was buried.

I was working every day, every night, every weekend. And I thought, gosh, am am I delegating enough? Do I have enough, uh, leadership resources in the organization to, to handle the demand and, and to support the organization and all of the institutes and all of the appropriately so, So I, I really started working on developing the leadership team principle where all of the leaders know everything that's going on in it and we solve our issues together and we help each other.

So bringing the leadership team together, huddling multiple times during the week to, uh, to make sure that we're staying on track and then setting the pace of. Monitoring all of the critical success factors across the IT organization with, with a rigor is, was really the key. And, and what, what was the real, uh, benefit of this is everybody's well-informed.

Everybody is accountable to, uh, to meet their, their service levels and their dashboard deliverables. And, and then it, it provides bandwidth. It provides bandwidth for me, and it provides bandwidth for the leadership team. So we, we have a, we have a regimen and a rigor that we go through. Yeah, just a few weeks back, we, um,

We had, uh, Chaney Cordero Lieutenant, uh, Colonel Chaney Cordero, uh, from the Darnell Army Medical Center on the show. And she, a, a again, was such a, a practical leader, full of, uh, great insights and wisdom, um, and she shared on what it takes to be an engaged leader. The next post I thought was interesting.

So trust, but verify. As a leader, we have to trust our staff. But we also have to be involved enough to, to really verify what they're telling us. And you talk about a, a situation where you're trying to deploy something. It turned out there was a, uh, you know, a failure in communication, uh, between the team on the system issue.

And you say, you know, trust, but verify it. The point isn't to place blame anywhere, but to ensure that, that the team has the resources they need. Um, and then you ask the question, what are some of the leadership accountability techniques that you use? So when you, when you say trust, trust, but verify, uh, how do you verify?

I mean, how do, are, are you, uh, yeah. How would you go about verifying, I guess, Yeah, so, no, that's a very good question, and what I've kind of learned is, um, is that I do the same. So I have a project meeting, and right now I'm, I'm actually having to do it a little bit more frequently than I like, uh, we're doing it weekly almost because, um, because I, I feel that we should revamp our project meeting and so, I am just like you, you know, you always have just some very little, uh, surplus level understanding, a surplus level, you know, idea of what's going on with that particular project.

And because of that, um, sometimes when projects are maybe not on schedule or maybe not priority, um, for that project manager or for that department, um, their, their answers are very generalized. And so I think maybe like, uh, maybe from teaching, uh, my BSS factor is really high and it's really sensitive , and so I'll start rapidly firing questions because it's almost, sometimes you can see it's almost like a, a dying fish in the water.

Right. You know? And I'm the shark coming in, you know, like I can see, um, when someone is, is not being quiet. Honest, but I try to create an atmosphere though that, that I'm not, I don't wanna press blame, I don't wanna say, you know, if you said, Hey, I didn't have time to look into this, or I don't have the resources, but I didn't ask you because it's so priority, I can handle that.

Um, what I can handle though is, uh, that you just been blowing it off. Or your, or your, you know, your integrity, um, you are having integrity issues. And so, you know, when I, so when I'm having these project meetings and I'm answering the questions, you know, usually say, Hey, you know it, this is the we, well, we're having an issue with the vendor.

Oh, okay. Well then that may be something on my level then, and you shouldn't be handling that. Let me call the vendor. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. , you know, we. Well, actually we haven't scheduled a meeting with a vendor yet. Oh, okay. So that's kind of what I mean is that, you know, sometimes when, when someone's not telling you something right, then your spiny senses of you kind, you know, go up in the air, you, and you know, it's not right.

And so just asking those questions so that they know that, uh, you know, I trust you that you do your job, but I also need you to know, um, that I'm. That I'm engaged and I'm an engaged leader. Okay. I, I think I've said great insights about 10 times. So I, I'll try not to say it anymore, but, uh, you know, I wanna close out the show with, uh, with two clips.

They're pretty short and, uh, I, I thought they were fantastic. Uh, one was Jamie Nelson and, uh, who, uh, spoke earlier and she, uh, is here giving, uh, encouraging women to take more, uh, career risk based on an article that she wrote. And, and actually I found this part to be interesting. You say women need to take more risks and the, the, how you highlight this is you say almost, um, you, you, you talk about that men are, are willing to.

To jump into the next role, even though they know they're not qualified for it, but they'll figure it out as they go. Whereas women are more pragmatic and they say, well, no, I'm not ready for that role yet. And they try to get ready for that role before they step into it. Um, so what are you encouraging women to do here in terms of, of taking risks?

You know when, when women come to talk to me, I tell them, don't, don't check off all 10 boxes. If you can check off three or four of your qualifications for that next role, go ahead and try for it because we really, we hold ourselves back in this way. And I was just listening to a Hidden Brain podcast this morning when I was walking my dogs, and they were talking about how this happens from when girls were little.

Girls are socialized. Be careful, don't hurt yourself. Don't, you know, don't run. And when you have that and boys say, go have fun, play, jump up, you know, off the tree branch. So that's, it starts from when we're very young. So that's how it is. And we have to recognize that and say, okay, it's all right to, to take these risks.

So I always encourage women, a few boxes is good. You know, try the worst that can happen is you fail and then you figure something else out. That's, that's how you grow. Yeah, if you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode with Jamie, uh, she wrote an article on Women in Healthcare and it was, uh, phenomenal and we were sort of working off of that.

Uh, so would love to share five more clips out of that. But, uh, you know, in the interest of time, uh, not gonna be able to do that. So we're getting to the end here. And so here's the last, uh, last video clip. It's, uh, David Baker, c i o of Pacific Dental. Uh, the short story on David is, uh, David worked for me at uh, Uh, worked for me at St.

Joe's and, uh, has progressed his career from consultant all the way up to c I o. And, uh, this is mostly me talking, but it's mostly sharing his story. Uh, 'cause uh, he really has lived the dream. He has gone from . Um, you know, pretty low level within the organization all the way up to c i o and he's doing a phenomenal job for this billion dollar, um, dental service organization.

So, uh, here's a little clip from, uh, the episode I did with David Baker, um, a close friend and, uh, someone who I had the opportunity to mentor. Actually returning guest, David Baker, uh, now a C I O. But I knew you when you were just, actually, I knew you when you were a consultant, right? Yes. So you went consultant, director, vp, and then when you left St.

Joe's, you became a C I o, C I O, SS v p and c i o. That's like living the dream. I mean, what do you attribute that to? Uh, great solid mentors, , who scrutinized every, uh, every molecule of my work. . I was, uh, I was a little, I was a little tough on you, but I'll tell you, I, we actually, I've, I've told this story a couple times.

The thing that impressed me, you're a consultant. I get named c i o, you're a consultant and you're like trying to get on my calendar. I mean, you're like feisty to get on my calendar. You come into my office and you're like, . What's the biggest problem you have? I, I, I, I guess the fact that the , I think the actual problem was the clinicians hated it.

Right? And, you know, at a, at a certain point, that's unsustainable. You can't do that. I'm like, well, the clinicians hate it. You're like, I can solve that problem. Cool. And you started on that path and it started with Epass, then it went to . Um, 20 back or 60 back. Yeah. 60 back. 60 back. I mean, you just did all sorts of things around the experience, around the internal user's experience with it and took us from a very low ranking to a very high ranking with making it personal.

Yeah. And, and when people ask me, you know, why, how did David get from here to there? , I say, anybody who walks into your office and says, give me your hardest problem. I'll figure out a way to solve it. That person's gonna get your attention, especially if they start solving the problem . Uh, and so I, I always, you know, I use that story to tell people, take a risk, figure out what the hardest problem is and see if you can see if you can solve it.

Alright, so that's, uh, that's it for the year in review from the CIOs and I, I literally could have put another a hundred videos in here. There was so much great wisdom from the CIOs. Um, I hope you enjoyed it. This is, uh, this is the last year in review episode before the top 10 episode, which will be coming out, uh, the Friday, Ja, probably January 4th, third, fourth.

I don't know what day that Friday is, but, uh, hopefully you'll enjoy it and, uh, I, I, I've just had a blast. I really wanna thank the CIOs for coming on the show and really making it what it is. Um, I, I think it is, uh, I, I'm learning a ton from every, every ccio that we have on the show, and I hope you're learning a ton as well.

Uh, you can follow the show at this week, health it.com. You can take the survey at this weekend, health it.com. Help us to shape the show in the future. We really do want your feedback. Um, sponsored by health lyrics. There's also on the Health Lyrics site, we also have the, uh, the shows hosted over there as well with some of my articles.

So you can follow us in both places and, uh, take the survey in both places. That would be great. Um, if you wanna see some of the videos this week in health it.com/video, we'll take you to the YouTube channel. And I think that's it. That's all the details. Um, so please come back every Friday for more news information and emerging thought with leaders from across the healthcare industry.

That's all for now.