Today in health, it where health it teams are headed. 10 observations. My name is bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system. And creator of this week health, I set a channels dedicated to keeping health it staff, current and engaged. We want to thank our show sponsors who are investing in developing the next generation of health leaders.

Gordian dynamics, Quill health tau site. Nuance Canon medical and current health. Check them out at this week. health.com/today. , so I, , in order to keep this 10 minutes, I have a phone call in 10 minutes. So that's one way to time, box this, to make sure I don't go over. I pulled an article from, , Becker's health. It where health system, it teams are headed. 10 observations. I think these are interesting and I'd love to cover them with you.

Here we go. And XR CIO is, are taking a larger role within health systems. As technology is growing.

To support all departments and the systems central mission, the CIO, his role has evolved into a true business leader in clinical partner. It teams will spend time influencing and being laser focused on their stakeholder communication skills said ZAFA Chaudry, senior vice president and chief digital officer at Seattle.

Children's who I just got off the phone with 10 observations from conversations with. Six healthcare CEO's. Here you go. Number one, CIO is, are becoming more strategic leaders and business partners to support the health system's mission in all departments to that end many CEOs today are keenly focused on technologies.

And applications to improve the patient experience as an important priority and key investment area for the health system, even as systems face tighter budgets than in the past. And that is so true. Every CIO I'm talking to either has picked up some new titles. , but regardless of if they've picked up new titles or not, they are focused more and more.

In on that experience from one end to the other, it could be the clinician experience can also be the patient experience, but they are laser focused on that. Number two, with the elevated focus on digital transformation, some CEOs are becoming chief digital officers, which I just touched on.

Or chief digital and innovation. , officers to reflect their elevated status as organizational leaders. They aren't solely managing the it infrastructure, but also developing and deploying data-driven initiatives and digital strategy. System-wide, it's important to note , and that is happening. Absolutely true. But it's important to note as that's happening. That what that means is there's another layer of people within the organization that are being elevated, that are taking care of the infrastructure.

I had this paradigm that I've shared many times, which is, , . Keep the trains running on time. Lay new track and build airplanes. And keep the trains running on time. Is really about making sure that your infrastructure is working right? The data centers working or the clouds working the, , cyber security is good. Hygiene is good.

The systems just run as they're supposed to run. It keeps the trains running on time.

Lay new track is about. , new features, new functions, new capabilities within the health system, and then build airplanes is about innovating. It's about doing things differently than we've done them in the past. And health it leaders are leading that shift as well. So that's number two. Number three, there is a paradigm shift to seeing analytics as a service for the health system to ideally reached the point where data contributes.

To predictive analytics versus being primarily retrospective today. All right. So we've probably been talking about that for a decade, but now you have new models. You have new forms of compute.. And new algorithms that you can, , you can get ahead of the curve. You can look at 10 years of history, 15 years of history and determine what's going to come. Next. Number four, the workforce shortage is front of mind for CIO is how systems are turning.

To robotic process automation, RPA to streamline more functions and depending on it, leaders. To quickly connect new employees with their systems, technology application and platforms, and used to be new employee would come in. And if they didn't get set up for a week, that was no big deal. And now it's gotten to the point where they come in, they get connected almost immediately.

, and we're also being asked to look at this workforce shortage and say, in what ways can technology. Help to alleviate that challenge. And so RPA is one of those things. One of many ways that we are trying to address the workforce shortage. Number five healthcare. It teams are encountering unprecedented attrition as competition from all sectors for tech talent heats up, hospitals are now competing with companies nationwide for it. Employees who have more remote work options, wage hikes, amid inflation and fierce competition. Also make it challenging for hospitals to retain talent.

Right. So healthcare is not going to be able to keep up. We cannot keep paying a top wage for talent. And, , that is just based on our margins in our industry. , tech. Margins are a lot higher. They're going to be able to pay more. That is just the nature of things. So at the end of the day, what I'm seeing is this very thing that healthcare, it leaders are thinking about culture. They are thinking about a purpose and meaning in the work they are connecting people.

To, , advancing healthcare and advancing the health of their communities. And it's resonated with people at a very deep level and it gives them a purpose in their work. And that is one of the things we have over other industries and CEO's are tapping into that healthcare. CEO's number six, the most effective CEOs will and gender, a culture.

Of near constant change where the concept of a five-year plan or even one-year plan. Is obsolete. Instead teams need a lightweight governance driven by business leaders who make changes. And employ new strategies quickly. While I believe this is true. We are getting much smaller windows and that is a good thing.

, throwing out the one-year plan is, is kind of silly. And even a three year time horizon is kind of silly. , looking at a three-year time horizon. You wouldn't look at, Hey, we're going to do this project over three years. What you would look at is the trends that are impacting your house. Some and say, okay, where are we going to plug it? We may not know what project we're going to do in year two and year three to address the patient experience or to address, , maybe a new.

, AR model or something to that effect for training of physicians. But we, we will know that generally we believe that technology is going to play a role in certain areas and certain trends are going to start to be adopted in the society at large. And if that's going to happen, then we need to be in front of that.

So, , yes, we are still looking at those plans, but we are becoming much more agile. Number seven as health systems build data and artificial intelligence capabilities. It teams need to be, , made up of more data scientists, analysts, architects, and engineers, sophisticated data teams can help improve patient care and realize savings.

For the organization and improve. , an important value proposition. Right. And so that's absolutely true data is just that it's just data and we are cleaning up the data so that we can start to create information and then we can start to create insights and then even predictive insights into our system. So.

Again, our teams are looking a little different and their focus, a little different. Number eight, there will be more collaboration between clinical and Dana teams. Absolutely. Number nine, interoperability, price transparency, and protecting patient control data remain top of mind for CEOs, especially.

With more data coming in from wearables and remote monitoring devices. , you know what, , interesting. I agree with the first like three quarters of that sentence. The, , wearables and remote monitoring devices have not taken off to the effect that I would like to see them take off. And so we are moving a little slow there, but hopefully that will pick up. And then number 10, diversity equity inclusion are top priorities. For most healthcare organizations and CEOs are working with their teams to support these initiatives. It's imperative to create equitable access to virtual care.

And make sure AI algorithms avoid biases that could hurt patient care while I hope that number 10 is true. I don't believe it is true. And I don't believe it is true because I want to see compensation models that support diversity, equity and inclusion until the compensation models, support diversity, equity inclusion.

I do not believe we are going to make the kind of progress that we need to, , this is, this comes back to a conversation I had with Dr. Klasko people do what they're incented to do, and. , most CEOs, we're not incented on diversity, equity and inclusion. And because of that, he didn't believe that we were going to make progress in that area. I agreed with him a hundred percent.

, on that, not that we should have to pay people to make progress in that area. But I believe it is one of the things that will help us to accelerate progress in that area. So there you have it. That's all for today. , agree, disagree. Shoot me note bill at this week, health.com. Love to hear from you.

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