Sue Schade

There could be as many different wrap-ups on HIMSS17 as there were people there – over 42,000. No one sees the same vendor exhibits, hears the same presenters, or talks to the same people. There are conferences within conferences. So, here’s just one wrap-up – mine The first speaker I heard did a great job of scaring all the CIO’s. Kevin Mitnick, the world’s most famous hacker and security consultant, and author of several books including his most recent one, The Art of Invisibility, was the opening keynote at the CIO Forum on Sunday. His talk, “The Art of Deception: How Hackers and Con Artists Manipulate You and What You Can Do About It.” included real-time demonstrations. He drove home the point about how vulnerable we are as individuals and organizations.  I highly recommend checking out his website to learn more or get scared yourself. Dr. B.J. Miller was the final speaker at the CIO forum. His talk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life”, was a very sobering view of palliative and hospice care yet strangely inspiring at the same time. As he said, “spending time thinking about your time on the planet while you have time is important – don’t wait.” I highly recommend listening to his Ted Talk with this same title. I have been asked to serve on the CHIME Education Foundation Board again so Monday morning meant a board meeting. It’s gratifying to know that after serving as the initial chair of the foundation board 10 years ago, approximately $170,000 in scholarships is now being awarded annually. An important part of our collective commitment to developing the next generation of health IT leaders. Another part of that commitment is reflected in CHIME’s new initiative focused on women’s leadership development. At an early Monday morning breakfast meeting, current CHIME board chair, Liz Johnson, shared the results of the CHIME women’s survey and the women in attendance discussed leadership development opportunities for the coming year. The HIMSS conference opened Monday morning with a keynote from IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty. She challenged us all as she talked about IBM’s Watson, the new “moonshot” and her own personal journey as a technology leader. With an increased focus on women in technology and STEM, no question that she is an inspiring and strong role model for women. Views from the Top sessions on population health and connected health rounded out the first two days for me on the education front. On Tuesday night I was honored to be part of a panel on value based care and population health at a private IBM dinner hosted by IBM Watson Health General Manager, Deborah DiSanzo. It was great to hear what Joe Kimura, MD, chief medical officer from Atrius Health, and Joe Reilly, CIO from Central New York Care Collaborative, are doing in this space and share my perspective. With the help of social media I kept up on the hot topics – this year the AI sessions were overflowing and the tweets highlighting the blockchain forum on Wednesday gave me a good sense of its potential for healthcare. In just the first two days, there were 52,020 #HIMSS17 tweets. Check out the #HIMSS17 Influencers for the full conference here. There’s even a cool interactive visual map from MDigitalLife.com you can mouse over to see the interconnections between influencers here. With my newly launched health IT advisory firm, StarBridge Advisors, it was a different kind of HIMSS for me. We talked with potential clients and had several meetings with other firms who we may partner with on engagements. While I skipped the HIMSS awards gala, I was able to congratulate in person several of the award winners that I know well — Pam Arora (HIMSS/CHIME John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year), Marion Ball (one of the Most Influential Women in Health IT Award recipients), and Dana Alexander (HIMSS-ANI Nursing Informatics Leadership Award). Kudos to these incredible women and all the 2017 award winners! While HIMSS is tiring and our feet ache at the end of each day, we all head home with renewed energy and passion for what we do – advancing healthcare and making a positive difference through technology! This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.

The countdown to HISS17 continues. As I wrote last week, the best way to think about it is in three ways – education, vendors, and networking. This post is the second in a three-part series – focusing on vendors. If you already registered, you have been inundated with vendor emails and snail mail since then. The ginormous exhibit hall beckons when you get to Orlando. So how do you make the vendor aspect of HIMSS17 as productive as you can? Here are some tips to consider based on many years of navigating the exhibit floor: Meeting with your current vendors – I’ve talked with colleagues in the past who always start here. They schedule meetings in advance or stop by just to say hello at all their primary vendors’ booths. I never fully understood this. Maybe I was a CIO in an organization with mostly internally developed systems for too long. You can connect with your primary vendors throughout the year so do you really have to spend a lot of time with them at HIMSS? It’s up to you and your specific needs and issues. If you want to see the latest and greatest products available or coming in the next year OR you have some big issues to discuss with their executives, it makes sense. Visiting vendors that you are evaluating – IT teams are in the planning phase for new systems all the time. If you are using HIMSS to check out the market in a focused product area, this is a great chance to get the lay of the land. Scheduling meetings and demos in advance makes sense. Exploring new products – You might be curious as to what new start-ups and innovators are doing and have a list of small firms to check out. You’ll have to work to find them since the big, established vendors buy the best floor space. But do find them – they will most likely be swarming with booth staff ready to talk to you. Special showcases – Be sure to check out the Interoperability Showcase to see what level of integration is possible these days. And look for the HX360 Innovation Zone where many new start-ups are demonstrating their products. You control your time – Booth staff are there to get your attention and tell you all about their products and services. They will keep you if you’re willing to stay. But you control your time and your plan. If you just need a quick informational conversation, want to pick up some materials, and leave your contact info (or not), then do that. Be polite and respectful but move on when you are ready. Being recognized – There are lots of ribbons that attendees can wear on their badges. The CIO ribbon is one that CIOs treat differently – some would never wear it because they think they’ll be aggressively approached by everyone on the floor selling something. I am of the mind that by wearing it, booth staff easily see you are a CIO and a decision maker and you might more easily get their attention when you visit them. Go back to my previous point – remember, you control your time and which vendors you talk to. Divide and conquer – Like my advice on education last week, plan with your team if you are going to meet with certain vendors together or you are splitting them up to cover more ground. Maps – You can download maps in advance from the conference site. This is especially helpful for planning your time in the exhibit hall.  Make your list of vendors to see, mark up the map and break it down in sections for each day. Social media ambassadors – They can help you prepare, keep up while there, and stay connected afterwards. Follow these influencers to get the most out of HIMSS17. #HIMSS17 Hashtag Guide – HIMSS has provided a helpful guide that lists key hashtags. Before, during and after the conference these hashtags may be helpful as you focus on what you want to learn about and follow. On both Twitter and LinkedIn, you can find related posts using the hashtags. And last, but not least, pack comfortable walking shoes – HIMSS conference veterans understand this. New attendees may not. You will easily walk several miles each day between education sessions and exhibits. Practicality not vanity is what attendees need to think about when packing shoes. Ladies, comfortable flats or low heels should rule! This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.  

The countdown to HIMSS17 is on. It’s less than three weeks and if you’re anything like me, you’ve not figured out your HIMSS schedule yet. You’re getting those emails from HIMSS and vendors about what to do, starting to see the “HIMSS preview” type articles in your favorite publications. As the conference website says – 5 days | 300 sessions | 1,200 exhibitors | 45,000 colleagues. It’s as overwhelming as it sounds. The best way to think about it is in three ways – education, vendors, and networking. This post is the first of a three-part series – focusing on education. After all, you’re paying a hefty registration fee and travel expenses so you should get some education time in, right? It’s not just about the massive exhibit hall and seeing all your friends in the industry! Bottom line, you need a strategy and a focus. No more getting a big thick conference book to page through in advance – it’s all online for you to peruse and develop your plan. The conference website has education organized by topics, professional roles, specialty education, and types of session. Here are some tips as you plan your education at HIMSS17: Sunday pre-conference symposia – if you haven’t registered for one of these yet, consider doing so. They are an additional cost but an excellent full day focus with experts on topics such as cybersecurity, interoperability and health information exchange, nursing informatics, medical device security, and precision medicine. Keynotes – you should certainly look at the program and decide which ones you’ll try to attend. Remember, the main room can be full with an overflow room. Don’t think you can walk in at the last minute and get a seat. Session levels – look at the level of the sessions you want to attend — introductory, intermediate, or advanced. This is HIMSS way of helping you figure out if the content is at the right level for you. There is always a “Views From the Top” track which is aimed at senior IT leaders. Don’t be put off; anyone can certainly attend. I’ll be checking them out. Key topics – Pick a couple focus areas you want to learn about and make sure you get to the best of those sessions. HIMSS helps by organizing sessions under broad topics such as: clinical and business intelligence connected health consumer and patient engagement health IT public policy leadership, governance, strategic planning privacy, security and cybersecurity process improvement, workflow, change management With all the changes in DC these days, I will be paying close attention to the public policy ones.  And I’m going to see if there is anything in the connected health and consumer and patient engagement areas I want to attend. Divide and conquer – If you are attending with work colleagues, don’t all go to the same sessions. Plan to go to different ones and share your notes. The most effective IT teams will be working together in the next two weeks to map out their game plan to get the most from their investment. At this stage, these are the sessions I’m most interested in: Integrating Technology into Medical Practice for Better Patient Care The Best Exotic Marigold Hospital: Hilton digital experience Using Data to Understand the Full Value of Patients Improving Patient Outcomes and Health Economics through Connected Health Innovation Welcome to the Age of the Patient: Transform Patient Relationships and Results with CRM Nationwide Trusted Exchange: Are We There Yet? This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.

I recently had an opportunity to advise an IT department on the team’s overall lean initiative. While no two organizations have the same lean journey, there are common challenges. Visual management and huddle components can give a lean management system a boost. Here are some of the common challenges you can expect to encounter and tips for success: “Perfect is the enemy of good” – You must be willing to experiment and get messy. Visual boards take many shapes and forms. Do they help you focus on the right work and metrics as a team? It’s less important that they look pretty to the outside observer. Standard framework with room for variation – Even if there is a standard for what all huddle boards in your organization should look like and include, there must still be room for variation by unit or team. What’s important to one team may not be important to another. If you’re ready to get started and wonder if there will be an organization standard at some point, don’t wait for it. Just get going and adapt later if a standard appears. Find metrics that are meaningful – Ask yourself a few questions. What problems are you trying to solve? What do you need to measure to track progress and show improvement? Shining a bright light on a specific metric may cause some angst but if it is one that needs to be measured to improve, shine away. You are there to solve problems – Be sure your huddles are not a place where people feel beat up. Create a culture of improvement that is blame-free, transparent, metric driven and focused on doing better for your employees and your customers. Be willing to tell the “ugly story” about something that doesn’t work as well as it should. Figure out how to improve it, implement the changes, and measure the results. Celebrate your wins – carve out a place on your board where you can highlight successes and celebrate what you’ve done as a team. Be creative and have some fun with it – I’ve seen huddle boards that take on a sports team and car racing themes. The potential for team ownership is that much greater when people can have some fun with it. If you’ve got a huddle board story or picture to share, I’d love to hear about it. This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.  

I’ve written many posts on leadership. As we witness the peaceful transfer of power in the Office of the President, it seems fitting to reflect again on leadership and what we should expect of leaders. When I think of critical leadership qualities at the executive level, I think of vision, integrity, presence, communication, and authenticity.  If you look at position descriptions for executive level leaders in business, you will see all of these and more.   I’ve talked in the past about the core principles and values I share with my staff when starting a new leadership position. In that early period, I want my team to get to know me and to understand what’s important to me. I want them to hold me accountable for living these values every day in every situation. And I also expect everyone on my team to live them as we work together. Here they are again but with a more generic description that can fit any leadership position: Teamwork – the leader must set a tone in all their words and actions that people are expected to respect one another and work collaboratively toward common goals in the best interest of all. Transparency – the leader must practice open, honest, and proactive communication and expect that from others. Customer service – the leader must remember who they are ultimately serving and have that guide their decisions. Accountability – the leader must be accountable, take ownership and deliver on their commitments. Innovation – the leader must create an environment where people are encouraged to be creative and bold in their thinking. Continuous improvement – the leader must encourage change and not allow the status quo to be the norm if it no longer works. Results focus – the leader must focus on end results with appropriate respect for the rules and processes. You should expect no less of your leaders. You should expect all this and far more. This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.

Think about the little girls you know. Did they get even more dolls for holiday gifts? Or did they get toys and games that teach creative thinking and how to build things? Or did they maybe even get toys officiallylabeled in the STEM category? Social norms start young. I recently played a match game with my two-year-old granddaughter. When we matched the truck picture, she took it over to her 6-month-old baby brother as though it was his domain! This granddaughter and her two-year-old girl cousin have a variety of developmental toys. But when it’s free play, they are often clutching one of their dolls, whether it’s Princess Sofia the First or the newest Disney Princess Elena of Avalor. At least these characters are both confident, strong and compassionate princesses! My four-year-old granddaughter isn’t as attached to dolls these days. After a break, she is back in dance class, my birthday gift to her. I know she loves it.  At Christmas, with her mother’s advice, I gave her 3 months of Koala Crate – a creative, educational activity box for 3-5 year olds. She loved the first box – making stuffed reptiles and learning about them. You may be saying it’s all about exposing kids to a lot of different things. I agree. But it’s important to not fall into the gender norms when they are young. Let’s fast forward from my three little granddaughters to some of the female leaders in our health IT industry. The CHIME-HIMSS John E. Gall Jr CIO of the Year is Pam Arora, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Children’s Health System of Texas. I am delighted. Pam is a leader in our industry and deserves this honor. I can’t help noting though that Pam is only the fifth woman to receive this award which began over 25 years ago. I spoke on  a HIMSS Women in Health IT webinar on Tuesday, January 17th titled “Yes we can, attracting the future leaders in STEM”. To prepare my talk, I asked Pam and the past female CIOs of the Year about how they got into IT and what advice they would now give their younger self. While there are many women health IT leaders, why not turn to these recognized and accomplished women for some advice? They got into IT because of the encouragement of either a parent, a teacher, or a boss. These important influencers encouraged an early interest in math and helped them stay with it as they started working. For two of them, like myself, their first IT job was programming. And it was back in the day of punch cards and programming languages you’d not recognize today. The advice to their younger selves and to young women going into IT and STEM fields today was to have a can-do, positive attitude and to find balance. Stephanie Reel is the Chief Information Officer and Vice Provost for Information Technology for the Johns Hopkins University, and Vice President for Information Services for Johns Hopkins Medicine. A bigger and broader role than the average healthcare CIO. She advised: “Be happy; be proud; go home a bit earlier to enjoy time with family”. She is a strong advocate for building a healthy work environment. She went on to say “We need to be kinder and gentler, and we should never allow ourselves to be bullied, or made to feel inadequate.” Pat Skarulis is the Vice President and CIO at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Her advice is “Just do it. Take as much math and science as you can early in your academic career.” She also advised to not overlook the arts which are very important to your development and career. Pam McNutt, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Methodist Health System, remembered the advice from her parents. “Don’t focus on the differences between men and women, just do your best and show value”. Her father told her she could do anything; the sky is the limit. Her mother taught her how to be a woman in what was a man’s world. Per Pam Arora, it’s important to stretch and not be afraid of new challenges. “Don’t be afraid of work you have never done before. It’s a first for everyone at some point. Dare to be the first!” I have great respect for all these women. We can all learn from them. The two leading professional organizations in our industry, HIMSS and CHIME, recognize the importance of developing women. I applaud the efforts they have launched under Carla Smith and Liz Johnson’s leadership respectively. Resources: HIMSS Women in Health IT CHIME Eyes Programs to Improve Leadership Diversity  This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.

Holiday gift lists, baking lists, family fun lists while kids are out of school and “honey do” lists while off from work…..we have personal to do lists everywhere. But as the year ends, it’s interesting to look back on some of the industry based 2016 lists and look ahead at what to expect in 2017. I’ve compiled some of the most interesting healthcare and technology lists to share as we approach this annual turn of the year. You’ve probably seen some of them already. There are the best places to work lists where we can all learn best practices to attract and retain talent in a competitive market: Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare 2016 and Becker’s 150 Great Places to Work in Healthcare 2016. And more specific to IT, there is Healthcare IT News’ Best Hospital IT Departments 2016. Check out their profiles and possibly get some new ideas to apply in your own organizations. As healthcare and technology are constantly changing, it is good to check out the highlights from 2016 and trends to watch in the coming year.  PWC’s report on top health industry issues of 2017 calls it a year of uncertainty and opportunity. Their 2016 projections were summarized in an article in FierceHealthcare last January. Deloitte shares their views in Health Care Providers Industry Outlook 2017. Focusing in on technology, what was hot in 2016 and what can we expect in 2017? Healthcare IT News highlights health care IT startups to watch. They also are projecting hot health technologies to watch in 2017.  And Health Data Management has identified the 12 top data and IT trends to expect in 2017. And then there are the people you want to learn from who are helping transform our industry.  Modern Healthcare’s list of the 100 most influential includes leaders from government, providers, payors, and private industry. The top 50 experts in health care IT is a two-part list from Health Data Management. Becker’s Hospital Review named their annual top 100 hospital and health system CIOs to know. Congratulations to all the talented industry leaders and experts who have been recognized this year! I was honored to be included again on this last list from Becker’s Hospital Review while I served as interim CIO at University Hospitals in Cleveland. Last but not least there is social media. You might want to check out some of the top blogs and twitter accounts to stay in the know. CDW Healthcare published a broad list of health-related blogs they consider the top 50 ones in 2016. Health Data Management published a list of 25 top healthcare IT blogs they think you should be reading in late 2015. And Health Data Management named the 55 top HIT and health care experts to follow on Twitter. As I continue to contribute to the industry through social media, it’s great to be included on these last two lists as well! Wishing you all a happy, healthy, productive, and balanced new year as we slide into 2017!  This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.

Itching to get a new position in healthcare IT? There are key questions to answer, and until you do, there will be no clarity.

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