A New IG Leader: the Emerging Role of the CIGO by Barclay T. Blair

The 4th blog in the Healthcare Information Governance Predictions & Perspectives blog series. This blog series is focused on Health IG Professional Readiness.

The information governance (IG) community is witnessing the birth of a new, and much needed, leadership role- the Chief Information Governance Officer (CIGO). Lack of effective leadership and executive level support are two major barriers to IG program success. The information buck, so to speak, needs to stop with someone within the organization who has sufficient authority and leadership skills to see that the work of IG gets done. That's why the Information Governance Initiative (IGI) advocated the adoption of the CIGO role as part of our 2014 Annual Report. Our recent conference on the subject shows that support for the role is growing.

In May 2015, the IGI held its first CIGO Summit. Attended by over 70 leading IG professionals, including two actual CIGOs, the full-day conference focused on developing a seven-chapter, CIGO playbook, laying the foundation of what it will take to be an IG leader and to achieve IG-program success. The conference built upon the work of the IGI's CIGO Task Force, a group of IG practitioners assembled to explore what the CIGO role might look like within an organization and to build a sample job description for the role.

Among the CIGO Task Force's findings were that the CIGO role is needed to fill three, primary gaps within the typical information-related functions at most organizations: information leadership, coordination, and balancing/prioritizing.

With respect to information leadership, at most organizations, no one owns the information problem, at least not in the way that the CIO or CISO owns infrastructure or information security, respectively. The CIGO would hold a leadership role with respect to the information itself, both structured and unstructured.

In addition, the CIGO would address the common problem of information-related functions working in isolation of one another (or siloing ) and would ensure the coordination of all of the facets of IG across the organization.

Finally, the CIGO would be in charge of developing and implementing an approach to information that would treat it like a business asset, striking the right balance of how to prioritize an organization's interests with regard to the risk and value of its information. Key to finding the right balance is tying those decisions to the organization's business strategy, tailoring them to meet its specific needs and goals.

We would expect the CIGO role to be developed more fully first at organizations with particularly complex information environments; the healthcare industry would, therefore, make a prime candidate. With its legal and regulatory compliance obligations, litigation exposure, as well as drive to optimize patient care and outcomes, the healthcare industry would also stand to benefit significantly from the adoption of this role within its organizations.

While the CIGO role by its very name implies a chief position and while a C-suite position for IG would address the need for executive level support, not every organization will be ready for a true CIGO role right away. But even if an IG leadership role cannot be elevated to the C-suite immediately, organizations can still benefit from a designated IG leadership position.

The CIGO Task Force developed a maturity framework to show what the IG leadership function might be at different levels of IG program maturity. The summary chart, below, captures highlights and can be thought of as both descriptive and prescriptive- showing what an IG leader (or CIGO) might do day-to-day at each level, or showing what it would need to do to take an organization to the next level.

A detailed description of the IG-leadership role at each level and a sample description will be available in the CIGO Task Force report set for Q.3 publication.

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Maturity Level State of the Organization's IG Program CIGO Role

Level 1: Nascent An almost non-existent of only nascent IG program. Building the foundation for an IG program.

Level 2: Intermediate An established but still developing IG program Developing the framework and structure of an IG program.

Level 3: Advanced A well-developed or advanced IG program. Maintaining and improving an already developed IG program.

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Join our Twitter Chat: Healthcare IG Professional Readiness: Predictions and Perspectives #InfoTalk

On July 29th at 10:00am PT/1:00 pm ET, @IronMtnHealth is hosting a Twitter chat using #InfoTalk to further the dialog. If you have been involved in governance-related projects, we'd love to have you join. Topics include how your organizations' IG oversight body is utilizing the principles of IG; the IG disciplines that comprise your job responsibilities, and the tactics you are using to strengthen IG-related skills? Join in to keep the conversation going.

Hear more voices from the thought leaders of the healthcare industry by reading the rest of the blogs in this series: Health IG Professional Readiness.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/industry/healthcare-information-man...
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