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Newsday: Mistaking Ambition for Readiness and Cultivating Talent with Samme Diaz

Samme Diaz: we've seen what happens when leaders mistake, ambition for readiness, right? And sometimes you have to slow down in order to go fast, that makes all the difference.

I'm Sarah Richardson, a former CIO and president of this Week Health's 2 2 9 community development where we are dedicated to transforming healthcare one connection at a time.

Newsday discusses the breaking news in healthcare with industry experts. Now let's jump right in.

Sarah Richardson: (Main) Welcome to Newsday, where I'm joined by Samme Diaz, a seasoned health IT executive and VP of advisory services at Healthlink Advisors, a consultancy dedicated to helping healthcare organizations navigate digital transformation and optimize performance.

Sam, welcome to the show.

Samme Diaz: Thank you, Sarah. I'm so excited to be here and get to do this with you is really rewarding and just glad to be here.

Sarah Richardson: I'm excited too because we've known each other for a very long time and the funny part is we're essentially newer roles and we get to do this kind of work together.

So it's the constantly evolving space that we all have in our careers and it's just fun when you get to do that with people that you enjoy spending time with.

Samme Diaz: Absolutely. I appreciate that.

Sarah Richardson: Of course. Let's jump into Newsday. I love these articles that we covered, and this obviously takes us back to a lot of our CIO roots.

alignment continue to make EHRs a top frustration. Often outweighing other workplace stressors. I know nurses aren't alone in this space. Tell me some of your thoughts on this one.

Samme Diaz: Yeah, I mean, I think, a big part of this. We're not doing a great job at making sure that the EHR systems really support the clinicians, especially from a nursing perspective

right? And if we brought them to the table, had more advocacy, more governance around it, I just think that would have a bigger impact for them. And one of the big ones I thought about as I was reading this article is training. So, we do a lot of IT led training. I'm sure some organizations do a great job with nurses, but a lot of times when you bring a nurse in to do training, you're pulling them off the floor and now they're in IT.

It just seems simple, but I'm sure it's not that simple.

Sarah Richardson: There's a level though that can be introduced when you think about advocating for the optimization. It's not death by committee as much as it is like those frontline staff decisions.

And to your point, we love to pull in the nurses into the informatics and roles that support IT. But if we have a hybrid environment where that compliance-driven design and user-driven workflow can really be married more effectively, then the usability, even auditing of those spaces and some of that, I guess, cross-functional feedback, it really creates an environment where nurses are being heard and their ideas are being implemented.

I think that would help with their burnout too, ultimately, if they really had that impact and value proposition.

Sarah Richardson: What was interesting in the articles, they talked about hospitals that have magnet status tend to have the obviously happiest nurses and better workflows and better integration with their EHR.

But then I dug in a bit and I was like, well, can you get magnet status without having a robust workflow process, et cetera. So when you think about long-term cost of ignoring what that burnout and the tie to technology could look like, what are some of the thoughts you have?

I guarantee nurses are now asking, what EHR are you using? And Especially in this article, it talks about nurses under the age of 40 that's extremely important to them. Which EHR system you're using and you think about that. They don't even know what it's like to be on paper. So having that impact on the nurse retention.

Also some reduced quality of care so if they're burned out, they're more likely prone to errors, they're gonna make more errors they're stressed out, right? You also have the financial implications, you've got turnover create more onboarding costs. You've gotta then do recruiting.

Then you've got your reputational damage. So if nurses are not happy, they're telling their friends in the nursing community that they're not happy and the reasons they're not happy. And if that's all ultimately tied to a system, I mean, that's a big piece of this.

How are you seeing the digital experience being part of the overall employee value proposition?

Samme Diaz: It's huge. It's a big part of their entire digital strategy, and we're not gonna use the AI word today, but I mean, it's there, right? So you've gotta have. A lot of the conversations, I think they're evolving too, and they're different than they were five years ago.

And right now, like just focusing on it's more of a broader question of what should we be incorporating into our digital strategic plan, right? What should digital transformation look like? And a lot of it is the usability across the board. If we're not making it easy on everybody at every length, it's not just nursing, right?

You've got your lab technicians, you've got your radiology. You've gotta be able to incorporate all of that at all ends.

Tim Cook responds and then they get Epic involved. Like what an amazing partnership that is really paying off in its early report outs.

Samme Diaz: I love Apple products the reason I picked this article is like, I would love to never have to use a Windows device ever again.

Yeah. Ever again and could you imagine being a nurse and not even having to look at your phone? becuase you could flip your watch and know that your labs are ready? That is amazing. Like that is just. Groundbreaking, in my opinion.

Sarah Richardson: it's an ecosystem that people already know and it's easy to use.

I went down my typical rabbit hole and I'm like, Hey, what does this mean for your security? platform and posture, and you still have to be vigilant, but if everybody went this direction right, it would significantly reduce some costs and streamlined workflows, even on the security side.

Although you'd still have to have things like, mobile device management and zero trust infrastructure. However, think about what it's like to do business with your family. Right to a degree. And we always talk about those wraparound services of like, how are you gonna take care of people and be informed and all of a sudden everything's Apple related.

So nothing feels like an additional hurdle when you're already in a vulnerable state.

Samme Diaz: Exactly. Exactly. Well, I mean, you think about how much your phone and your Apple Health already tracks Your, your health. It's not trying to remember which blue pill, right. What color's the pill? What's the name of the pill?

So they were able to continue to take care of their patients and still have all of the access at their fingertips like that's amazing.

Sarah Richardson: And like so many systems today, that cyber event was because of a vendor, correct. Not because they didn't do what they were supposed to do. And yet, here you go, the Apple Hospital perfectly aligned and didn't have any issues.

Samme Diaz: Exactly.

Samme Diaz: Agreed.

Agreed. I mean, to going to like the change adoption. Can you imagine the amount of change readiness to know that everybody in your health system, all of your leaders, everybody's on board with this? It's earth shattering. Like that's just pretty amazing to know the amount of levels they had to go to and everybody was like, we're on board.

Sarah Richardson: Although you've gotta also think about potential interoperability and sustainability. That initial framework for going and doing a consumer grade technology implementation like that is important because not everything integrates as effectively with the Apple ecosystem. Right. So I'm thinking though of like getting all your APIs organized, getting all your integrations organized.

I would rather have the challenge of getting Apple to work with my environment than everything else that I feel like was always just climbing uphill constantly right? Like, what a win, because you do that and now it's available for everybody.

It's a whole Apple centric hospital. Like, I mean, you're shooting for the stars here. That's just a great step in the right direction.

Sarah Richardson: I mean, there was this conversation about it and thinking organizations will talk about human design thinking or patient design thinking.

And yet this really does say what are people using in their day-to-day life most? Now, I'll be honest, I have a die hard Android husband, period. So I'm like, yeah, but if you were in the hospital, I would be taking care of you, sort of and so I would be fine with all these devices and how things work. So I do wonder though, is it.

Well,

Samme Diaz: and I thought about it too, like, this sounds terrible, but Apple's easy to use and that you always hear people when they're talking about Apple products, well, my grandma can use it or my great grandma. And it is, it's very user friendly so if you flip it, and that was part of this article as well, is the patient can interact and we have been talking about HIEs and interoperability for how many years, and we really haven't gotten to the point where us as the patient are in charge of our actual medical record.

So now I look at this and I'm like, I can actually manage my medical record, my medical history, everywhere I go I can travel, I can do all of the things and have it at my fingertips. And I can go in, I can check in, I can track my own orders in the hospital and not just keep telling my family I'm gonna be here for another 10 hours.

Sarah Richardson: Well, and consider just the last article we covered, if now you have an ability to introduce Apple devices that not only improve mobility from reducing friction in clinical workflows, that frees up time for patient care, but you actually have adoption rates and time saved, and the reduction in burnout for the nurses too, because ambient listening It's taking a massive foothold and everyone's excited about it's first time in the 20 years since, all these different regulations came into play, where people are excited, especially clinicians about technology that is ambient listening. Now you have ambient listening with Apple products. All of a sudden, once we're waiting for ambient to catch up with nursing workflows, you have a bunch of wins for your nursing staff as well.

Definitely a story I wanna continue to follow because I wanna see how they do as things evolve, especially with the epic relationship.

Sarah Richardson: I'd also like to believe that it can be done with other EMRs as well. Yes. You're not just, oh, yes. Have to be Epic to do this, absolutely, this with Oracle. You could do this with Meditech, you could do this with a myriad of others.

And that Apple starts to become more of a baseline than just the EHR being a baseline. Exactly.

Samme Diaz: Agreed.

Sarah Richardson: Agreed. They can be mutually exclusive and still complimentary to one another.

Samme Diaz: Right, right. No, that's a good point.

Sarah Richardson: I've always enjoyed diving into these stories with you, not just because of the headlines, but because we both sat in the CIO chair and we know what it means to translate strategy into reality across systems that are always under pressure,

Samme Diaz: I think that's, you know, one thing to admire innovation from the outside, it's another to actually assess, is our organization truly ready for this? Do we have the platform maturity? Is our leadership ready? Are they aligned? The integration capacity? And then the other part of it is, do we have the talent?

Sarah Richardson: Which is why this is so much of a conversation around the total C-suite because you might be rethinking EHR usability for nurses or rolling out consumer grade tools like Apple in a clinical setting.

And you and I both know the success of these efforts isn't always about the technology. It's understanding the organization's appetite for change. You and I both love change structures because mostly the human element. Where can you stretch this? Where can you maybe push too hard that breaks momentum?

Work around you.

Samme Diaz: That's right. And we've seen what happens when leaders mistake, ambition for readiness. Right. That's where the fortitude to ask the tough questions. And sometimes you have to slow down in order to go fast. That makes all the difference. And if you're not, you mentioned change, like I love change, but does that mean that everybody that's working with me is able to execute on the change I want to do?

That's a big question and that's a tough part of this.

Sarah Richardson: I remember at a previous lifetime putting in almost like a change readiness score. Like how willing is our organization actually gonna absorb what we're putting in front of us. Right? And it always is gonna come back to both, we mentioned the talent, but the timing of certain initiatives.

like we're talking about, right? And if you don't have an environment that lets you thrive and do those things, then you also have to go find a new environment. And that can be scary for some people and so I always encourage CIOs or anybody in that suite to say, am I in the right place to do the things I want to also do with my career?

Samme Diaz: Absolutely, I can't agree more. And for any C-suite listening today, I'd challenge you to look at not just the tech headlines, but ask yourselves, where is my organization truly ready to evolve? And how do I lead us there in a way that sticks. Paying attention to that and wanting the new technology.

To your point you've gotta make sure you're not just great at implementing technologies. You've gotta be great at telling the story. You've gotta be great at having the talent. Making sure you're keeping them completely educated and certified so that they can continue to take care of that.

As you evolve

Sarah Richardson: and in your new role, you've been with Healthlink four or five months now.

Samme Diaz: Five months.

Samme Diaz: Yeah I look at it like you've got organizations that know they need to refresh, and maybe even just like rebuild their relationships with their customers. And so they're looking for a roadmap or hey, we've got all of these different technologies that we want to implement. but we don't know how to actually execute or timelines based on all the things we have going on.

And to your point, getting to kind of, use those talents and those strategic thinking in a different element is just pretty amazing.

There's so many opportunities out there with like radiology platforms that we're looking at, like there's AI and everything. Now it's just a matter of how are you gonna use AI. You've gotta ask yourself that question too, like, what is your organization's appetite to truly use AI? For efficiency of your IT staff along with your clinic clinical decision making, like you've gotta be in that which path are you willing to go down? That's a big part of that too.

Samme Diaz: Absolutely. Yeah, agree.

Could not agree more.

Sarah Richardson: Such a great conversation with you and I'm grateful that we get to keep having it together.

Samme Diaz: Yes. Thank you so much. This has been great. I really appreciate Ian on here today with you

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