Career Planning

HIMSS is conducting a short survey to determine what challenges women face and what opportunities they have leveraged along their career path.

Join HIMSS to find out more about HIMSS18 networking and mentorship opportunities, as well as get introduced to the 2017 Most Influential Women in Health IT award recipients.

Network reliability and availability of fiber-based services are acknowledged as key contributors to success at rural healthcare organizations adopting new care delivery models, but these same organizations also acknowledge challenges with funding and clinician buy-in in their efforts to enhance healthcare delivery. During this webinar, Bryan Fiekers, senior director of Research Services for HIMSS Analytics, will share the results of a new research study that explores the impact of connectivity on rural hospitals. In addition, Fiekers will offer actionable insights and prescriptive guidance into how rural healthcare organizations can gain the connectivity needed to help advance key clinical initiatives.

Former Ascension Health CIO Kathy Ross takes the IT reins.

I am a lean leader and always willing to share my learnings. I’ve written several blog posts chronicling my lean experience at different organizations.

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.

Transformative change in health IT is dependent upon an educated and inspired workforce. Encouraging girls to pursue STEM careers will help to bridge the gap in the science and technology workforce. It is vital to create work environments that support and retain women in STEM fields.  Learning Objectives: Identify methods to develop the next generation of technology innovators and leaders Use first-hand experience to discuss how to move into management roles and profiling real women in STEM careers Discuss ways to support and encourage women in technology 

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

Transitions of leadership are going on all the time in our organizations: a new CEO, a new VP, or new management at another level; it is change. As I’ve written about, I just completed such a transition. I have served as an interim CIO for eigh plus months. The agreement for the engagement was that I’d stay through the successful transition to the new CIO. We envisioned a 30 day overlap. As the start date for the new CIO approached, 30 days seemed very long. Wouldn’t the new CIO want to get in and get started without me around? But as she and I started planning that time, 30 days seemed reasonable for all that we needed to do. When it came time to start the transition, there was so much else going on each day we found it hard to find the time to focus on the transition work. In the end, we both agreed 30 days was the right amount of time and extremely helpful to her.  [Also: Best Hospital IT 2016: CIOs share secrets of managing a happy IT team] But a 30-day overlap and transition period can be a luxury. Organizations often go through leadership transitions with far less time or even no time for the old and new leaders to work together. When I took the interim engagement, I had an hour conversation with the previous CIO on his second to last day; that was it. I’ve observed another successful leadership transition this year at AAMI. The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation is a nonprofit organization founded nearly 50 years ago. It is a diverse community of nearly 7,000 professionals focused on advancing safety in healthcare technology. I serve on the AAMI board and executive committee and was on the search committee this year for our new president. Our current president, Mary Logan, announced in November of 2015 that she would retire at the end of 2016. Over the past year, she diligently prepared for a leadership transition to her successor while the search committee found a new leader, Rob Jensen. He started this week. At our most recent board meeting, Mary shared what she called the “bus book”. It’s all the information and background a new president could possibly need to effectively step in if something happened to her. Mary had been developing it with her senior leadership team over the past few years. Knowing she would be turning things over to a new president, she went much deeper in putting it together. Having just completed the CIO transition at University Hospitals, what I saw Mary do was beyond anything I could have imagined doing. But it’s something I’d now consider a best practice. Of course, in a retirement situation with plenty of lead time, this is doable and maybe even expected compared to a resignation with just several weeks’ notice. A challenge for the outgoing person is to provide all the needed information without biasing the new person. You need to let them know the “gotchas” and the potential problem areas. You need to let them know who’s who and the most important relationships to nurture internally and externally. I’ve been advising an internal interim CIO the past few months, helping him be successful in his role while the organization conducted the search process. The new CIO starts next month and the interim is now trying to figure out his transition plan for her. Bottom line I told him his task is to support her through onboarding and help her be successful. And that certainly includes letting her know the “gotchas” and problem areas she’ll need to deal with. Leadership transition assessment and planning is one of the services that my new firm, StarBridge Advisors, will be providing. When there is a leadership change at the CIO level, we can work with executives to assess the current state and the existing IT leadership team for development opportunities, and make recommendations for the next CIO position specification. We can provide interim leadership and assist with the search. And we can serve as a trusted and seasoned senior advisor to the new CIO if needed in their early months. The core values and mission of an organization don’t usually change when a new leader takes over. Finding the right person to build on the best of what is already there, to change what needs to be changed, and to successfully take the organization into the future is the key. Smooth leadership transitions are an important part of this process – for the success of the organization and everyone involved. This post was first published on Sue Schade's Health IT Connect blog.