Today in health, it new C-suite transformation roles. Let's talk about what we can expect from that. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creative this week health, a set of channels and events dedicated to keeping health it staff current. And engaged. We want to thank our show sponsors. We're investing in developing the next generation of health leaders. Short test artist, site, parlance, and service. Now check them out at this week. Health. Dot com slash today. As you know, I've been talking about this for awhile. We partnered with Alex's lemonade stand all year long. We had a goal to raise $50,000 for childhood cancer. And we've done it. We've exceeded $50,000, but we're not done. We're going to keep plowing through and seeing how far we can go. We ask you to join us, hit our website. And in the top right-hand column, you're going to see a logo for the lemonade stand. Click on that to give today, we believe in the generosity of our community and we thank you in advance. All right, this is an article. Let's see, where is it? Here? It is. It is Becker's. Hospital review. I don't know if you've noticed this, but Becker's is writing. A lot more articles. It feels to me like they're writing more articles. I could be wrong. But it just feels like more of them are showing up in my feed. I'm not sure what that is. Could be me. Who knows. Here we go. So health systems. Bulk up C-suite ahead of transformation. We're going to read this. And I'm going to talk a little bit about what I think it sort of indicates that is going on. Faced with tighter margins and continued rising cost. Many health system C-suites are restructuring. At least 17 health systems have reorganized executive teams and some eliminated C-suite roles. The chief operating officer role in particular has been one on the chopping block for health systems, but not everyone is slimming down. Some are bulking up a mid organizational transformation with an eye on the future. That is shocking to me. That's chief operating officer role. It has been on the chopping block that would indicate to me that the wrong person was in the role. And not necessarily that you don't need a chief operating officer. Well, and maybe the chief operating officers to administrative. So let's read on in this and see if, if some of these pieces fit together. Okay. In June Sutter health in Sacramento, California named Todd Smith MD. There should be a lot of MDs in this too, by the way. It's an all year old, senior vice-president and chief physician executive responsible for supporting the health systems. Through clinical transformation. Dr. Smith will focus on the service line standards, reducing variation and strengthening the system's relationship with medical group and community physicians. All right. That role makes perfect sense to me. And it's kind of surprising to me that Sutter. I did not have that before. Anyway, we'll go on. , Sutter. Isn't the only system adding clinical leaders to the C-suite mass general Brigham. And Somerville mass named Eric Shanie. Shenoy. S H E N O Y Shenoy M D PhD, its first chief of infection control in June. Her expanded role is, oh, it's Erica. I apologize. Erica, her expanded role is accountable for leading the integration of infection control at the system and developing and implementing infection control standards. Policies and measurements. Makes sense. Absolutely. Meredith health in Hagerstown, Maryland. Added physician leadership to its executive team. Adrian park MD became the system's first chief surgical officer. With responsibility for building surgical programs with advanced technology in minimally invasive procedures. To the system. Again, makes sense. If that is a direction and a profitable line of business, Maine health in Portland recently added Chris Thompson MD to the C-suite as a system's first chief medical transformation officer. He is responsible for chief medical officer duties, as well as innovating in care delivery. So interestingly, given that role, chief medical transformation officer. If he's the chief medical officer who also does. , innovation and care delivery. I would not have given him the transformation title. I would just say chief medical officer. , but it would indicate to me that they expect more than what we would see from a traditional chief medical officer. So, , let's see, Richmond based VCU health and OU health in Oklahoma city named their first chief nursing executive. As well earlier this year. That I think it's just. That's just catching up to the world and understanding that, , the nurse and the nurse executives are critical and that communication is critical. , to that space. Health systems are also adding strategic experts with expertise in patient experience, transformation and data analytics. Emory healthcare created a new role. This is Emory out. Out of Atlanta. , Maka and then, and then, yeah. N D to serve as chief transformation officer accountable for enhancing patient and clinician experiences. , she took on the role in July and is tasked with developing system-wide strategies to boost patient experience. Improve access to care, increase community engagement. And enrich clinician experience. I think it's interesting. These roles, it goes on by the way, there's a. Let's see, , Emory also had another one Centura health in Colorado added a chief transformation officer Scott Lichtenberger MD. , balance short-term improvements and longterm value and Cleveland clinic has elevated another it leader into the C suite in recent weeks. Albert. Martinez was named the system's first chief analytics officer said at the beginning of his new role, August 28th. He previously served as chief analytics officer at Intermountain health in salt lake city, and will be responsible for overseeing data strategies for better patient care and lower costs at Cleveland clinic. Interesting and elevating that role to the C-suite. , interesting as well. I think what you're seeing is you're seeing organizations recognize that the status quo is not going to work anymore. Right. That's what this indicates to me. We have, , we have, , balance sheets are getting weaker. Operating revenue is tight. Operating profit is negative. And I think you have boards asking questions. I think you have leadership teams asking questions, and you now have an environment where people are saying let's do something different. Let's do something that actually moves the needle instead of business, as usual, instead of trying to hold on. Th for dear life to all the fee for service you possibly can. There's an openness to doing things differently. I think this is a good thing. And I don't think by the way, if there are times where there's all these new roles where there's a discussion around, is the CIO role being diminished. I don't think the CIO role is being diminished. I think it's being defined. I think it's there, there are parameters being put around it. As I have said, often it is one of the hardest roles I've ever had. And one of the reasons it was one of the hardest roles I've ever had. It's so broad. You were handling so many things. You were in so many conversations. Every strategy in the health system. I was in those meetings or someone from my team was in those meetings. We had to speak into just about every strategy from population health, to hospital, home, to. , to new service lives to consolidation. To opening, , , you know, retail clinics, you name it. We were apart of all of those conversations, because technology is a part of all those conversations. And I think there's a recognition that it's too broad for one person there. They're they're bringing it in a little bit. And they're saying, okay. The CIO, keep the trains running on time. All right. Keep the systems running. Keep them secure. Keep them, keep us from being in the newspaper. All right. We don't want to be in the newspaper for an outage. We don't want to be in a newspaper. For a security breach. All right. So keep the trains running on time. Oh, by the way. We need you to consolidate the applications and get us to standards so that we can move quicker. That's one of the things that's going to happen. The more you bring in these transformation people, they're going to say, Hey, we need to move fast. They're going to go to it. And if you have not done the hard work, if you have not consolidated the applications, if you have not. , standardized processes, workflows and, , set data standards and those kinds of things. You're going to move slow because you have to do more, more points of integration because you have to do more steps. And you're you're hearing and you're going to hear this fall, cause I just finished doing a series of interviews with, , great health systems. And, , and, , two of them specifically, I was talking to Providence. I was talking to Northwestern medicine and they have completed their consolidation into a single EHR. They've completed their consolidation into a single ERP. They have completed their consolidation. , around packs and imaging. And now that they've done that. They can accelerate. They can accelerate their digital transformation. They can accelerate their data initiatives. This is true. No matter what size health systems you are. If you have multiple EHR, if you have multiple PACS systems, if you have multiple, , ERP. Things are going to move slow. And, , I th I would strongly encourage you to drive towards standardization. So anyway, I think. That's what I think is going on here. I think there's a recognition. We have to do things differently. , ground is fertile right now because , people are feeling. A, what we're doing is not working. We need to prepare for the future, whatever that future is. , And so we have new roles. I would, I would embrace those new roles. I would embrace those new leaders. And I would partner with them. To move the health system forward. And, , just figure out if I were a CIO today, I'd figured out what my swim lane is, what they expected from me. And, , I would, , partner with those people to move things forward because quite frankly, a lot of the it projects and the digital transformation is more about operational transformation than it is about digital transformation. When you do a. A massive scheduling project. That's an operational project when you do. A, , in which you will do for, for, , any kind of scheduling through a digital means. , I can't think of an it project today that doesn't require significant operational change, either clinical change or, or administrative operational change. And so I think that's what you're seeing here. You're seeing more focus on those areas to accelerate the change. All right. That's all for today. That's all for this week. And, , I will see if I can get some shows out next week. I am going to UGM. I got my first invite ever. From epic to attend UGM. I'm not going to be doing interviews there. I am there as a guest. To hear, , what they're doing in the industry. And, , I will report back on that. I hope to have shows on Tuesday, Wednesday, we will see if I get that done. , if I don't, I will see you on Thursday loaded with tons of information. Cause I'm going to see a lot of people and I'm going to hear a lot of different things I'm sure from epic. So we'll say. All right. That's all for today. If you know someone that might benefit from our channel, you know what to do, tell them you're listening to it. Tell them, Hey, why don't you listen to a couple of these? We'll talk about them. Cause I've been listening to them and, , that's why, that's why we do it. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders, short test artists, 📍 parlance and service now for great companies. Check them out. This week health.com/today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.