CIOs Are Adjusting to a New Job Description

Today’s healthcare innovation landscape is chaotic, and the C-Suite needs to adjust to keep up. Are we ready for a Chief Storyteller or Chief Collaborator?

The chaotic pace of innovation is forcing CIOs to become a jack-of-all trades.

During a recent CHIME panel at ViVE 25 in Nashville, Andy Crowder, CHCIO, CDH-E, SVP, Southeast Region CIO and Enterprise Chief Digital Officer for Advocate Health Care, traced the evolution of the CIO back to the pandemic, when virtual care was all the rage and health systems were scrambling to be innovative.

“I think the role of the CIO or Chief Digital Officer … has been [as] a strategic advisor, part of the C-Suite, tied to strategy,” he said.  “We put our feet on the accelerator, and nobody’s taken that off.”

 “Because of those disruptions and because of that focus, now you’re a force-multiplier,” added Aaron Miri, MBA, FCHIME, CHCIO, Baptist Health Jacksonville’s EVP and Chief Digital & Information Officer. “It changed the lexicon of CIOs to be talking more like a CFO, or a COO, or a Chief Human Resources Officer. I spend part of my day looking at recruitment, part of my day looking at P&L [profit and loss], part of my day looking at futuristic digital transformations and what we can do [to be] disruptive, as well as strategically, where are we going as a health system?”

With the promise of AI on the doorstep and against a backdrop of declining workforces, quality and cost problems, razor-thin margins and an uncertain federal response, CIOs and their colleagues are in a tough spot. And many are eager to accept the challenge.

“We want to be that first-stop shop” for innovative ideas, Miri said. “We want to help you co-develop, and more importantly, imagine the art of the possible.”

At a time when healthcare organizations are looking to cut costs, and in some cases culling their C-Suite, the idea of a fluid job description for the CIO might seem like job security. But at a time when innovation needs a hard and fast ROI, it’s incumbent upon CIOs, Chief Transformation Officers, Chief Digital Health Officers and Chief Strategy Officers to gain a better understanding of what it takes to push through a good idea.

And it’s not limited to CIOs. CFOs and those in Revenue Cycle Management need to better understand the clinical side of the organization to develop tools and strategies that benefit both the patient and the purse strings. CMOs want to work with CNOs—and vice versa—to create better relationships between doctors and nurses.

Collaboration has become a necessity, as health system and hospital leadership looks for new ideas that address more than just one pain point or niche problem.

During the CHIME panel, Tressa Springman, SVP and Chief Information & Digital Health officer for LifeBridge Health, said CIOs can’t just sit at their own desks and wait for things to come to them. They have to be storytellers, understanding the environment and the competitive landscape of vendor relations, looking beyond the shiny new toys and hype to assess whether something really will transform healthcare.

“I see myself as the educator,” she said. “I am the person who is the glue in the organization. I am constantly educating my peers on what their peers are doing.”

“I spend most of my day thinking about, OK, how am I going to improve this business function, how are we going to partner to make this improvement, and will technology help that particular function or not?” she added.

This is where HealthLeaders is headed with its new Chief Digital Executive Exchange, scheduled to take place December 4-5 in Washington DC. Designed to bridge the gap between CIOs and their counterparts, this event aims to give digital and information executives the knowledge they need to collaborate and give new ideas the best chance for sustainability and scalability.

Recruitment is underway for this event. Please contact me for details.

Exclusive sponsorship opportunities are also available. For more information, contact Sales@healthleadersmedia.com.