With the advent of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) technology, a CIO inherits more leadership responsibilities requiring additional technical, administrative and political skills.
Healthcare tech leaders will need to simultaneously direct strong communication between clinical professionals and the IT staff, while managing the deployment of EMR technology within the health care organization.
"EMR is not an IT project. Implementation cannot be done to 'clinical departments.' They [CIOs] must be active leaders in the project," says Pamela Matthews, an associate with Dearborn Advisors, a professional services firm that partners with healthcare organizations on advanced clinical information technology investments.
To provide clear leadership, a tech leader must constantly be aware of who the project audience is, and all the business members who have different investments in the project.
Generally speaking, physicians don't embrace change that easily. As an ERM implementation impacts the daily activities of health care professionals, it is the CIO's responsibility to get medical staff on board with the system.
To combat the apathetic or antagonistic response that may arise, a CIO must interact with the medical team at the start of the project.
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"The CIO must gain credibility and trust with the clinical audience," says Matthews, "One of the most important aspects of an EMR implementation is ensuring clinician ownership throughout the entire process and afterwards."
To make that happen, a CIO must establish open lines of communication throughout the organization. Once the physicians feel a part of the process, there will be a smoother and more successful transition to using EMR, notes Matthews.
Getting the physicians' acceptance is not the only hurdle however. A CIO also must communicate to the IT department the magnitude of implementing an EMR. Initially, new hire orientation and training enhancements need to be addressed, but the members also need to feel invested in the project's ultimate success.
"This [EMR] implementation can allow an IT staff to truly appreciate and see first-hand the importance of their daily work contributing directly to patient care delivery," says Matthews. By helping tech staff understand its direct contribution to the care of the organizations' patients, the CIO will gain a greater support from the tech team.
One of the best features of an EMR is that it allows more efficient information exchange within an organization. While the government is still trying to establish guidelines for EMR, many CIOs are being proactive in their planning.
Nationwide there is the emergence of Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs). Most RHIOs are comprised solely of health care organizations, but some have included large corporations to assist in developing a secure line of information exchange. As these information exchange communities continue to emerge, today's CIOs must be able to collaborate with other entities and incorporate both protocols while maintaining the integrity of confidential records.
The overriding issue with any EMR system is the security of patient records. "One of the future questions for any healthcare organization is sharing of the patient care information and medical record coupled with security of sharing of information--both from a technical aspect as well as a procedural or regulatory aspect," says Matthews.
As the security issue is directly related to the IT effort, there will be a different perception of the CIO position as compared to other C-level executives.
"I think a successful EMR and security program implementation promotes and elevates the CIO within the organization in the eyes of management, physicians, and other staff," says Matthews.
This continuous growth in responsibility will lead to an even more prominent role for the CIO within the senior executive team.
S. Blake Coleman is a health care IT consultant with FGP International (Find Great People). At FGP, Coleman specifically targets and recruits technology professionals with hospital systems experience to include former clinicians who have developed expertise in hospital systems and made the transition to a technology role. He can be reached at this email address.
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