Healcare CIO Perspectives: Key emes from #BeckersCIORoundtable by Nancy Twombly

The Beckers Healthcare CIO Roundtable just wrapped up in Chicago, and I had the opportunity to hear some fantastic discussions on the key challenges facing healthcare executives today. As stated in the closing roundtable panel: This is a tremendously exciting time to be in the healthcare industry - and that was evidenced by the great progress that healthcare organizations have made across multiple fronts, including Meaningful Use, Mobile Health, Social Media, ACOs, Interoperability, and Privacy and Security.

Just a few of the standout themes at the #BeckersCIORoundtable include:

CIO: Evolving to Chief Innovation Officer: While the primary focus of the healthcare CIO is to create and deliver IT solutions to achieve an organizations' mission and vision, CIOs wear many hats. Today's CIO plays a critical role in transforming the organization to achieve business outcomes. The CIO is responsible for getting meaningfulness out of Meaningful Use , while driving business innovation. As the CIO role evolves from Chief Information Officer to Chief Innovation Officer, they will be instrumental in revolutionizing the workflows and processes that can improve outcomes across the health system.

The CIO is a strategic partner: The CIO needs a seat at the table as the hospital develops and evolves its' strategic plan. IT initiatives must tie back to the health systems' mission and the vision; and clinicians also need to be highly engaged in the process and decisions around the technologies that are put in place. These solutions need to bring value to the health system and should have a demonstrated return on investment that is revisited on a periodic basis to ensure that they are meeting their key performance metrics, and forwarding the mission of the hospital.

It's all about the patient: Several of the panel discussions focused on the growing emphasis on the patient in the shifting healthcare landscape. Historically, a health system's IT infrastructure was designed as an application-centric set of siloed solutions; each with its own purpose. With a patient-centric view, CIOs are evolving from this traditional approach to an integrated infrastructure with the patient at the center. With the advent of Social Media and Mobile Health, patients are becoming increasingly invested in their own health profile, and video and email patient visits are growing significantly. These technologies can be used to positively impact patient outcomes before, during and after a facility visit - providing a more holistic and patient-centric focus.

Security needs more focus: Most industries today spend approximately 8% of their budgets on IT, with additional budget (up to 10%) added to address security. The healthcare industry averages 3.4% to 3.5% of its spend on IT, inclusive of security-related initiatives - yet it's held to very high privacy and security standards. It is critical for providers to do risk assessments so that they can remediate any identified security gaps; then systematically address the gaps in order to avoid a potential incident or breach. It's also important to consider engaging vendor partners that can objectively assess the current state and help recommend and implement solutions that will address identified deficiencies to mitigate long-term risk.

Governance is imperative to long-term success: The demand for information is growing exponentially, and health systems need to ensure they have the data quality and integrity that will be needed for effective patient care. Data integration and data sharing capabilities are critical to achieving the goals of population health, and there needs to be a strong governance structure in place to achieve these goals. Providers need to engage a cross functional team to ensure these objectives are developed and implemented across the health system; while there is no one size fits all approach for governance, it is critical to engage the key stakeholders representing the diverse functions in the healthcare delivery network.

In spite of all the identified challenges, there was great optimism for the future of healthcare information management and the vital role that IT will play in helping to achieve the health systems' strategic mission. Healthcare CIOs have demonstrated continued agility and nimbleness in this time of constant change. Their mission to help improve the health of a population while enhancing the experiences of each individual patient - all in the face of limited resources and tight budgets - is a testament to the critical importance of this role. I'm looking forward to the next #BeckersCIORoundtable to hear more examples of how healthcare CIOs are transforming the industry - and improving patient outcomes across the country.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/industry/healthcare-information-man...
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