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We're putting our Health IT on low power mode? What does that mean and why is it more common these days.

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Today in health IT austerity measures. You're not alone. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week Health, A set of channels dedicated to keeping health IT staff current. And engaged. We wanna thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders.

Sure. Test and Artis site two great companies. Check them out at this week, health.com/today we've been doing this, , year long campaign to raise money for childhood cancer in partnership with Alex's Lemonade Stand. And, , over the five conference we were able to raise $16,500, as you heard earlier this week.

, just amazing. There was two ways that people gave. One was as part of the Captain's campaign for Cures and all those people who took pictures in that, , are greatly appreciated. The people who did interviews with me, we took, every time somebody said Chat, G P T, and we gave money toward Alex's lemonade stand.

We could not have done that without three Great partner. Order. O R D R. , let's see who else. Oh, shortest and Arti site. There you go. , three great partners who, , really gave a bulk of that money towards, , fighting childhood cancer, and we appreciate their partnership as we move forward on this campaign.

, Everyone who participated, everyone that was part of it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We are up over $28,000 raised so far. If you wanna be a part of our, we're gonna do Captain's Campaign for Cures, again at the Hymns conference. If you're gonna be a part of it, please combine and take a picture.

If you are a, , vendor partner that wants to be a part of that campaign, go ahead and contact me, bill at this week, health.com. All right, here's the article for today. It is why digital innovation leaders left Novant Health. So the digital and innovation leaders who recently departed Winston-Salem, North Carolina based Novant Health told Charlotte Business Journal.

The moves were planned and part of larger restructuring at the health system. Angela Yoakum, who has been on the show, executive Vice President and Chief Transformation and digital officer. And Paula Dean Krantz, vice President of Innovation Enablement, and Executive Director of the Novant Health Innovation Labs were part of the March 29th round of layoffs at the health system that included about 50 employees.

Ms. Yoakum told the news outlet, the restructuring will allow the system to thrive in spite of the headlines, headlines, headwind. Pretty sure that's headwinds. , told the news outlet, the restructuring will allow the system to thrive in spite of the headwinds being faced by all healthcare systems right now.

Asked whether the layoffs were part of a larger reduction in it or digital innovation staff or services. A Novant spokesperson said the health system didn't have any more information to share. The last few years in healthcare have been increasingly austere austerity measures, forcing many systems to cut activities that don't directly impact patient.

Remember that don't directly impact patients. Ms. Krantz told the business journal, but even in those conditions, they're proud to have raised 4 million from grants and donors to introduce emerging technologies, transform our business growth and elevate patient outcomes. Ostensibly, we grew grass on concrete.

Okay, so I share that story to. That the, the, the headlines, the headwinds, the stories, they're real. And we're, we're hearing at, at the five conference, one of the things is I had conversations that I recorded and then I had conversations that I had. And in the conversations that I had, which do not get attributed, , there were a lot of discussions around cuts that were beyond the.

Right, and this cut is beyond the norm. Angela Yocum is one of the, , truly innovative leaders in the industry. If you talk to anybody who's come in contact with her, they really appreciated the work that she has done at Novant in the innovation area of moving things forward. To have this announcement be there is, , is something that really causes some people to shutter.

Let me tell you how I read. I read it directly off of that line, directly impact patient care. Right. So they have a CIO that's Angela oversaw the cio, but she's not the cio, so they have a cio. Their systems are gonna keep running. She had a larger role than that, which was also the innovation side and the investment side that they were making.

And they looked at that and said, look, that's not returning real dollars anytime soon. We can rebuild that later. But for right now, we are hunkering down. The work that directly impacts patients, the work that directly brings in revenue to the health system. Okay, so that's how I read this. I don't read this as anything other than that.

This was a move made to hunker down. Whether the storm identify how health systems are gonna emerge from this and then rebuild later based on how healthcare emerges. This was a, a, that kind of move. So in my conversations with others, you know, I heard stories where we've gone into, , essentially break fix mode.

I heard a CIO essentially tell me, we've gone to break fix mode. I'm like, what does that. And his, he essentially said to me, look, we are taking on no new projects. We are keeping what we have running with the staff. We have all the open positions have been eliminated, and we're gonna try to hold on with the staff that we do have and just keep these systems running.

Now that it's a smaller health system, scared me a little. , I've heard from another, , we're going into low power mode. Another way of saying break fix only, we're going into low power mode. Do you know when your phone is running outta battery and you essentially turn off all the things? Well, actually Apple has it now that's called low power mode, but essentially it turns off all things that are using the battery that aren't necessary.

That's what's happening at another health system, which is a little larger than the small health system. I just, , rattled off. So we're seeing these austerity measures. This is not, , you know, this is not isolated, this is system wide. We're seeing significant cuts, , happen. We're seeing the elimination of a lot of open positions, , in healthcare.

So, , I share this because you might think, oh, my health system is the only one going through this. I hope you don't feel that. , you're gonna be asked to make cuts. I would, I would. If I were a CIO today, I would get in front of this. I say this all the time, I would get in front of this. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it's going to happen.

Some, they're gonna, there's gonna be some ask that is gonna be hard to figure out how to do. And if you can get ahead of that, if you can find the savings, the efficiency, the links to patient care or growing. , have that story ready to be told. Have the, , have the investments that need to be protected, identified so that they can continue.

, because again, when you get to austerity measures, cuts don't make sense anymore. You look at it and you go, well, why would we cut that project? There's a return on that project cuz the return's not. Right. What was right nine months ago may not be right today. And so that's what we're seeing in the industry right now.

That's what I'm hearing in the industry right now. , just wanted to get that out in front of you. Plan ahead, get in front of it. Identify. You know, maybe a handful of ways that you can do these cuts. I'm, when I coach my CIOs, , one of the things I tell them is, you have to present things in tranches to the organization.

When they say, Hey, we need cuts from you, and from it, you present them in tranches. You present them in the, Hey, this stuff is easy, , to do. We can make these cuts eliminating open. We can make these cuts. These are easy, not a huge impact on the operation. The next group has an impact on the operation.

Then you have to identify where they impact the operation. And then the next group is, Hey, these are very difficult cuts. If we do this, we cannot do X, Y, and Z anymore. Like, we have to change the operation, we have to change the expectations for it. We have to change how the business functions in order to make these cuts.

, so present them in tranches and there could be other tranches if you really think about it and move through it. It depends on your system. It depends on your, your budgeting cycle and how you. How you guys budget and operate. Some are still on annual budgeting cycle. Some are on a more agile budgeting cycle, and so you'd present that a little different depending on the health system that you're at.

All right. That's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel, do me a favor, forward them a note. They can subscribe on our website this week, health.com, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Apple, Google Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher. We try to be everywhere. We wanna thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders.

Sure. Test and 📍 Arti site. Two great companies who can save you a bunch of money. Check them out at this week, health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.

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